LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Cha$. Copyright No. _'. 

Shelf...^i^ z %T 



rMs- 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



NOBLE LIVING 



A SERIES OF STUDIES AS TO THE DEVELOPMENT 
OF THE DEEPER LIFE IN MEN 



EDITED BY s^ 

CHARLES SUMNER NICKERSON 



BOSTON 
UNIVERSALIS! PUBLISHING HOU 

1896 




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COPYRIGHT, 1896, 
By THE TJSIYBBSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



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c J. PKTKBS * SON L TVPOG ! APHKB8, BOSTON. 
L . BARTn^riBINTEBS. 



" / am come that they might have life, and that they might have it 
more abundantly." — J esus Christ. 

"Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto 
those things which are before, I press toivard the mark for the prize 
of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." — St. Paul. 

"He who understands life deeply and fully, understands life truly — 
he has forever renewed his life; and if there comes into our hearts, in the 
life which we are living, a perpetual sense that life needs renewal, a rich- 
ening and refreshing, then it is in order that we may go down into the 
depths and see what lies at the root of things — things that we are perpetu- 
ally doing and thinking. It is that we may open to ourselves some newer, 
higher life" — Phillips Brooks. 



PREFACE. 



Men are living in the midst of transient things. 
By necessity the mind is much occupied with the 
affairs of the present. While it is undoubtedly 
true that scores of our fellows are unnecessarily 
" anxious for the morrow," it cannot be denied 
that there is a demand laid upon every one to 
make some provision for the future. There must 
be nourishment, clothing, and shelter. 

But because a man recognizes these require- 
ments, he need not be blind to all things else. 
Even if he exist in a world of change, it is pos- 
sible that he may be a partaker of the unchange- 
able. If he be compelled to deal with material 
things from day to day, it is possible that he may 
consider and utilize something which is not ma- 
terial. If his nattfre links him to lower ranges 
of activity, it also links him to the higher ranges. 
Though one lives in the world, he may be above 
the world. 

The purpose of these Essays is to aid the soul 
in its struggle for attainment. The mountain of 



VI PREFACE, 

character is difficult to climb. From its summit 
alone can a clear view of life — its toils, duties, 
and fulfilment — be obtained. Multitudes tire 
even of the first attempt to rise. Many who spend 
years grasping at some slight out-jutting points, 
thereby making slow ascent, become weary of the 
undertaking and fall backward. Others, through 
the new motive furnished by the larger horizon, 
persist in their endeavor, and, though it be by 
winding ways and over rugged paths, enter into 
the joy of the wider apprehension. 

To point to the heights, to indicate the oppor- 
tunity and demand for ascent, to explain how 
struggle affords strength for continued effort; to 
present the helps and helpers beside the pathway, 
to suggest the practices whereby motive is de- 
veloped, and to exhibit the motive itself; to prove 
existence a unit, to show what its constant up- 
ward movement signifies, and to guide to that 
condition wherein, amidst the rarer atmosphere 
of the Father's recognized presence, the soul is 
transfigured, — this is the design of the writers 
and of the editor. 

May it please the Most Gracious Spirit to let 
his blessing attend this work, and may it aid to 
the fulfilment of the petition, " Thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven." 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Walking with God 3 

Charles Henry Eaton. 

The Blessedness of Faith 17 

Sullivan Holman M'Collester. 

Love as an Inner Force . 51 

Frank Warren Whippen. 

The Riches of the Scriptures 73 

Edward Lovell Houghton. 

Moulded by the Invisible 103 

Charles Sumner Nickerson. 

The Uplift of Prayer 129 

Charles Bockwell Tenney. 

The Obligations of Religiox 161 

Joseph Kimball Mason. 

Saved by Christ ; 183 

Gideon Isaac Keirn. 

Christian Peace 213 

Harrison Spofford Whitman. 

The Immortal Life 233 

James Milford Payson. 

A Perfected Character: the Goal ok Life . 263 
Fred Augustine Dillingham. 
vii 



WALKING WITH a OB. 



Chaki.es Henry Eaton. 



WALKING WITH GOD. 



When, forty years ago, Pierre Leroux offered 
his article, u Dieu," to the Revue des Deux 
Mondes, it was returned with the observation, 
" The question of God lacks actuality." The old 
order Avas based upon Christian theism. Civili- 
zation has taken the place of Christianity; faith 
and hope in man, of faith and hope in God. As 
some one has said, " Vortex reigns in place of 
Zeus." The flippant and even scurrilous jests 
of the atheists of the time of the Revolution 
have gone out of vogue. But the present is 
characterized by refined indifference. This arises 
partly from the influence of that philosophy which 
affirms we can know nothing of God, even if He 
exist ; but more from the peculiar emphasis laid 
upon the material side of life through the achieve- 
ments of a marvellous civilization. 

But, whatever the outward attitude, it remains 
true that there is no question that is more actual 

3 



4 NOBLE LIVING. 

and more imperative than the one relating to 
the existence and influence of Deity. Men have 
sought for God from the beginning, and will to 
the end. With varying definitions, it has been 
asserted in every country and in every age, that 
man could hold communion with God. Mysti- 
cism, which has been defined as " the conscious- 
ness of the Infinite," has marked every epoch in 
religious development. Moses " saw God face 
to face " in the ancient days. In modern times 
the metaphysician declares the same truth when 
he writes, " The highest fact in man can hold 
immediate intercourse with the highest fact in 
the universe." The Oriental mystic speaks of 
the necessity of the " light in the heart which, 
when the sun has set, and the moon has set, 
and all sounds are hushed, still illumines man." 
While the political economist, 1 in a practical age, 
gives as the conclusion of his remarkable experi- 
ence, "Human life is inadequate to satisfy human 
aspirations." 

Every great faith has originated in mysticism, 
or "heart religion," and by it, lives. When the 
sense of God's constant presence is absent, re- 
ligion sinks to superstition, or is smothered in 

1 John Stuart Mill. 



WALKING WITH GOD. 5 

ceremonialism. For every age, but especially the 
present, Heine's jest embodies a truth, u Poor 
old Lampe, the servant, must have his God, or 
there will be no happiness for him." We are 
so constituted that, in the natural working of our 
faculties, we arrive at the conception of God. 
The duty of the age and the church is to clarify 
that notion, and convert it into a practical force. 
The greatest need of our time is to cultivate 
the consciousness of the Infinite, to leave for a 
time the consideration of the " beggarly ele- 
ments " of the physical world, and undertake 
the study of human nature. We need to re- 
create the spirit of devotion which moves at the 
centre of the soul, where "illusion," if not "im- 
possible," as the saint says, is less certain. When 
the church had hampered itself with useless legal 
restrictions, and sacrificed communion to com- 
merce, faith to ceremonialism, associations were 
formed which called themselves " Friends of 
God." They did not break with the church, 
they often belonged to opposing parties ; but they 
were one in the effort to strengthen each other 
in daily intercourse with God. There can be no 
higher duty, no deeper need, than for Christians 



NOBLE LIVING. 

to-day to encourage each other in a daily walk 
with God. The test of all true religion, the 
measure of one's usefulness and attainment in 
the Christian life, is found in the effective reali- 
zation of the Divine Presence. 

Walking daily with God does not involve a 
miracle, but simply an awakened brain and heart. 
It does not require a journey somewhere, but life 
here and now. " I go," said the dying Plotinus, 
" to bear the divine within me to the divine in 
the universe." To die was totally unnecessary. 
The divine was as near the living as the dead 
Platonist. To wait for the dissolution of the 
flesh, or the unveiling of a new sense, was un- 
necessary. 

We walk with God when we look upon nature, 
as did St. Bernard, as " the shadow of God " and 
"the soul as his image." The earth, with its 
beauty and order, is not the result of a "fortui- 
tous concourse of atoms," not even the product of 
"vibrating ether." It is the act of an intelligent 
creation. It is not chance nor fate that moves 
the wheel of life, but the hand of God. Civili- 
zation is not the outcome of an accidental train 
of circumstances, but the product of a divine 



WALKING WITH GOD. 1 

mind. The material world, human history, per- 
sonal life, would be impossible without the ever 
present and active God. Many fail to dwell 
upon the divine side of nature. They know 
nothing, think of nothing, beyond what they see. 
This lonely world is all in all to them, — 
its mountains and plains, its rivers and oceans, 
its sunrises and sunsets, its myriad mysteries, its 
gorgeous colors, its beautiful forms and sounds, 
its buildings, its arts, its friendships, its patri- 
otisms, comprise all there is of life. They only 
see the outer beauty ; its inner and divine sig- 
nificance is lost. " Prosperity, struggle, sadness, 
— it is all the same. They rejoice, they struggle, 
through it all alone ; and when old age comes, 
and the companions of early clays are gone, they 
feel that they are solitary. In all this strange, 
deep world, they never meet but for a moment 
the spirit of it who stands at their very side." 
But whatever the position of the believer or un- 
believer, it may be said, in the words of a well- 
known writer, " Age after age passes ; though 
foolish theologians and blinded atheists may 
wrangle with their eyes turned away from the 
light, the world goes oil to larger and larger 



8 NOBLE LIVING. 

knowledge in spite of them, and does not lose 
its faith for all these darkeners of counsel may 
say. As in the roaring loom of time the end- 
less web of events is woven, each strand shall 
make more and more clearly visible the living 
garment of God." 

As we find God in nature, so we may walk 
with him as we mark the progress of events. 
In all great social movements, in revolutions 
which have altered phases of human life, quick- 
ened the sense of public honor, enlarged the 
freedom and enlightenment of the people, there 
is something more than the human element. A 
wise and thoughtful man will trace along the 
pathway of nations which have reached great 
exaltation the footprints of Deity. None can 
read the history of the progress of the world 
without perceiving an orderly advance, and a 
constant adjustment of means to ends which 
argues the existence of a Supreme Mind. 

So we may walk with God in the hours of pri- 
vate and public worship, when the deepest affec- 
tions and moral qualities are awakened, and spring 
up toward the light. Great thoughts, noble con- 
secrations, holy aspirations, are the evidence of 



WALKING WITH GOD. V 

the living God, are indeed God in manifestation. 
To feel the constant influence of Deity, to walk 
with Him hour by hour in affliction as well as 
in joy, in days of weakness as well as days of 
strength, in times of failure as well as success, 
is to realize the true end of the Christian life, 
and solve the problem of existence. Power, such 
as we can never measure, and whose growth is 
without limit ; peace that brings a holy calm 
into a heart torn by conflicting claims, and makes 
"music at midnight," — are the outcome of this 
attitude toward the Creator and Governor of the 
universe. 

But many are asking to-day, How may this 
condition of mind and heart be brought about? 
The answer is not difficult. The analogies of 
education, illustrations from history, instances 
from biography, — all point the way. First, there 
must be an act of the will. Quiescence is not 
the gate of inspiration. Quietism contains a 
sublime truth ; but when it seeks to paralyze 
the motive part of our nature, it is false in 
theory and practice. The method of Christ is 
to " knock," " ask," and " seek." We must 
be completely filled by a divine longing, but we 



10 NOBLE LIVING. 

must work for its gratification. The world may 
be full of sunshine and warmth, but if we do 
not draw the shades and open the windows, 
there might as well be no light and heat. The 
majestic Father walks the earth in glory, smiles 
at us from the face of the cloud, and throws into 
our lap the prodigal gifts of love. But if we 
will not open our e}<es, or hold out our arms, 
how shall we receive the gifts ? An energetic 
will drives out evil thoughts, cleanses the ways 
of the mind and heart, that the Spirit may enter. 
When once it feels the touch of the divine, it 
cries in a kind of masterfulness, " I will not let 
thee go till thou bless me." The passive mood 
in religion has gone. The active mood has come. 
Self-surrender to God is the highest expression 
of religion. But it is possible and permanent 
only as the moral nature wills and persists in 
willing. 

Association also plays an important part in 
God-culture. When a painter would absorb the 
inspiration of his guild, and prepare himself for 
great achievement, he enters the company of his 
fellow- workers. He places himself under the in- 
struction of great masters. " He frequents studios 



WALKING WITH GOD. 11 

and galleries of art. Sometimes he abandons his 
home, and crosses leagues of ocean, to join the 
company of those who think of nothing, who 
dream of nothing, who labor for nothing, but art. 
So is it among scientists or would-be scientists. 
So is it also in the less exalted fields of trade and 
pleasure. 

It must therefore be the same in the realm of 
the spirit. There must be active pursuit of God 
in the company of those who are engaged in the 
same great quest. Here, in part, is the explana- 
tion of the value of worship and meetings of de- 
votion. We feel the magnetism of many hearts 
filled with the same interests and the same pur- 
poses. 

Biography has an important office in revealing 
God, since it makes our living and personal 
friends and inspirers those from whom we are sep- 
arated by time and circumstance. Our reading 
provokes our imagination to create a world which 
we people with the faithful or the unfaithful. 
Mental associates, the men and the women who 
come to us in apparent solitude, often exercise 
a tyrannous power over us. The dead speak to 
us in their printed word, which has unmeasured 



12 NOBLE LIVING. 

influence. Although we shun the presence of the 
godless in the embodied world, we are constantly 
under the dominance of the atheism of the invis- 
ible. So by the same law we can fill our solitary 
hour, our library and chamber, with the pure and 
lofty spirits who have believed much, and achieved 
much for God and man. In the spiritual economy 
Christ is the open door to God. He reveals God 
to man, is His u express image." We walk with 
God when we walk with Christ. Jesus is divine 
sonship completely realized. He is God trans- 
lated into human terms, the prophecy of oneness 
with God which all men are to attain. In hours 
of strength Christ presents difficult but divine 
objects of endeavor. In moments of humility he 
exalts us by revealing our kinship to the Infi- 
nite Father. In the presence of joy he makes 
known the divine beneficence, and under the 
power of sorrow discloses the merciful discipline 
of Deity. 

"When once we give ourselves intelligently, lov- 
ingly, and with decision of will, to Christ, we shall 
walk daily with God. Then in nature, history, 
human experience, in every civilization and in 
every revelation, we shall find the Divine Spirit, 



WALKING WITH GOD. 13 

"potent to slack the thirst of human nature, to lift 
eyes dim with tears and dull with pain towards 
the beatific vision, to heal and strengthen feet, sore 
and weary from the rough ways of earth, for the 
ascent of heaven." 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 



•" 



Sullivan Holman M'Collester. 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 



Our little girl of two summers, as she was 
sitting on the grassy lawn, picking clover blos- 
soms, saying, as she held them up to her mother, 
" beautiful," was giving an expression to an in- 
tuition of beauty, not to an idea which she had 
learned. When the child of six years old Avas 
asked by the philosopher, "how she knows there 
is a God?" answered, "My think tells me so," 
the sage could not gainsay the reply. As the 
physician inquired of the convalescent youth, 
"how she knew that she had a soul?" responded, 
" My consciousness, or feeling, tells me so." — 
"Ah! " continued the doctor, "did you ever see 
it ? " _ « No." — " Did you ever hear it ? " — 
"No." — "Did you ever taste it?" — "No." — 
"Did you ever smell it?" — "No." — "Did you 
ever feel it?" — "Yes." — "Then," continued the 
wise man, " you have only one sense in favor, 
and four against it." She retorted, " Doctor, do 

17 



18 NOBLE LIVING. 

you know there is any such thing as. pain?" — 
" Yes, I think I do, when I have the jumping 
toothache," was his reply. — "Well," she con- 
tinued, "did you ever see it, taste it, smell it, 
hear it?" — "No, but I have felt it." — " So you 
have four senses against it, and only one in its 
favor." Thus it is in the higher conditions of 
living, — life itself is not only the foundation 
of knowledge, but certain knowledge inheres in 
it. Often it does not require demonstration, as 
in mathematics to prove that the three angles 
of a triangle are equal to two right angles, but 
somehow it possesses the truth, or the knowledge 
of the facts. This is a gift, not an acquirement; 
it is inherent, not an accretion. Thus the be- 
lief in God and immortality is born with men. 
Our deepest convictions are not the outcome 
of logic ; they are higher than the grasp of 
reason. This is particularly true of our religious 
convictions. 

We are wont to say that the poet and musi- 
cian are born. Culture alone could not produce 
a Whit tier, or a Beethoven, because it is impos- 
sible for a lower to create a higher. The order 
is God, angel, man, beast, bird, fish, insect, mi- 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 19 

crobe. So we can understand why all things 
good are possible with God ; and why we have 
different orders, conditions, and administrations; 
and why souls should have insight by a special 
gift to things higher than themselves. Now, this 
insight and outsight is faith, or soul-sight ; it is 
the soul's going out of itself for what it craves. 
•This is what sees God and friends. I know we 
are apt to talk as though it were far otherwise. 
We often magnify the body to the belittlement 
of the soul. We are accustomed to speak of 
burying a friend, when we place his mortality in 
the grave, just as though a hundred and fifty 
pounds of matter constituted the man. 

The fact is, we do not recognize one another 
through the flesh. The child comes to know its 
mother only as heart touches heart, mind com- 
munes with mind, and the spiritual takes cogni- 
zance of the spiritual. The body to-day is not 
what it was yesterday ; it is incessantly chan- 
ging ; it can be divided into parts, and its parti- 
cles are being constantly displaced ; its life can 
'be but a span long. But the soul is a unit ; 
its faculties cannot be separated ; they are bound 
into an everlasting oneness, enabling man to see 



20 NOBLE LIVING. 

and know the spiritual, to love and admire what 
is unseen to the natural eye. 

It is true there are those who honestly say, 
they cannot believe, only so far as they can touch, 
handle, and reason out things. There are those 
who can make no headway in geometry or classic 
literature ; this does not prove that these are not 
facts, it only shows mental defectiveness, or a 
want of certain intellectual perception. This 
lack may have resulted from heredity or home 
education. Therefore, when one says he cannot 
believe, that he has no faith in any hereafter, 
that at death he shall drop into nonentity, he is 
to be pitied. One without any esthetic percep- 
tion, or musical appreciation, is to be commiser- 
ated, but nothing so much as he who has no 
spiritual insight. 

As we read the doubts of Diderot, Hume, 
Shelley, and John Stuart Mill, they do not make 
us feel as though life were worth living. An 
insect with its eyes destroyed buzzes and dodges 
around strangely ; so it is with men without faith ; 
they beat themselves wofully against the wall, till' 
at length their flesh falls into the dust. Sense 
pierces into the deformities of things, and finds 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 21 

them evanescent; while faith penetrates beneath 
and beyond the seen, to the unfailing and real. 
So faith is an attribute of the soul, made up 
of trust, confidence, and courage, which sees, as 
the setting sun throws back the colors of gold 
and rubies, a bright to-morrow ; it has clearest 
vision of the future. Experience unfolds past 
ages, and faith penetrates the realms of futurity ; 
it is nothing else but the soul's venture. As 
the farmer sows his seed, faith shows him the 
harvest. As the mariner loses sight of the port 
left, his faith exhibits the haven towards which 
his steamer is sailing ; by the showing of astron- 
omy, we come to know that the sun is ninety-five 
millions of miles distant from the earth ; through 
this quality of soul, or mind, we are enabled to 
see, as science speaks, that the lightest of gases 
is a mineral, that there are minerals which swim 
on the water and take fire at the touch of snow, 
that the diamond is but a bit of melted charcoal, 
and that pearls are only the resultant of disease. 
Were it not for this attribute of the mind, the 
mother, as she kisses her darling, could not see 
him a noble man ; the teacher, in listening to 
the recitation of a precocious student, would 



22 NOBLE LIVING. 

not discover him a philosopher in the unfolding 
years, neither would that boy have dared leap 
from the fourth story of a building on fire, as 
he heard his father's voice ascending through the 
lurid smoke, saying, " Leap, my son, I am here 
to catch you." Faith exhibited to him, in spite 
of raging flames and blackest clouds, his father; 
and he leaped, and was caught in paternal arms, 
rescued from a terrible death. It was such sight 
that enabled the old man, taking the Christ-child 
in his arms, and raising his eyes to heaven, to 
say, " Now lettest thou thy servant depart in 
peace." Surely the believing soul at the foot 
of the cross can see a risen Christ. 

This quality of character too seldom receives 
full recognition. It is prone to be treated as 
something mystical or fanciful, or at least not 
more than half certain. We are not wont to 
examine sufficiently, to ascertain the fact that we 
begin to think in the realm of faith ; that Ave trust 
friends before we know them, and in ourselves be- 
fore we comprehend our individuality ; that really 
it is a force which underlies consciousness and 
throws open the door to knowledge. It is true 
that it is less liable to misapprehension in common 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 23 

affairs than the spiritual. The man of business 
could not get on at all, did he not feel the potency 
of this soul-force, giving him sight of what is 
ahead. It enables him to look through a day, a 
month, or years, perceiving possible riches ; and 
then with what will he dares the wolves in the 
way, and struggles for the entity near, or far off. 
From height to height he pushes on for the golden 
pitcher filled Avith the silver waters. As blossoms 
are before the fruitage, so is faith before good 
works. 

Faith embodies trust, confidence, and courage ; 
so the adventurer, listening to tales of rivers 
running over golden sands, like the ancient Pac- 
tolus, leaves, and ventures all to gain wondrous 
treasures. The sick man, hearing of sunny climes 
and invigorating lands, bids adieu to home, and 
travels far off to reach his anticipated goal. Faith 
is really the fashioner of all great souls. Had it 
not been for it, Abraham never would have found 
the Promised Land ; Columbus never could have 
endured the raging of the ocean and the contumely 
of his crew in searching for the new world ; Wash- 
ington would have deserted his charge in the time 
of the Revolution, when shamefully taunted and 



24 NOBLE LIVING. 

thwarted in his noblest endeavors; Sir Walter 
Scott would have found no peace and power to 
write his last thrilling stories under the burden of 
heavy debts which had been unjustly thrust upon 
him. All great souls have been subject to trying 
disappointments, and have triumphed because of 
faith. Therefore Jesus sorrowed as no others, 
and yet he gained the greatest victories. As faith 
brings to light the invisible, it fills the soul with 
patience and courage. It discovers God not only 
everywhere, but all of God at every point, not 
his wisdom here and his goodness there, not his 
love to-day and his justice yesterday ; but he is 
the same personality always and in every place. 
Faith is the soul's eye, through which we see 
God or man. It is only when filmed that it can- 
not endure the light. Still one, while in the flesh, 
who sees a distant result, seldom knows just how 
it is to be attained ; for this reason, when he is 
making a worthy pilgrimage, his tent is certain to 
be pitched on higher ground than he anticipated, 
however, never above the peak his soul sighted. 
Accordingly, Savonarola could witness the dawn- 
ing of a new day, when priests were lurking in 
shadows and stirring up fagots to burn muscle 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 25 

and bone which never see, thinking thereby to 
destroy the dauntless seer. Christ knew, when 
the blind Pharisees were driving the nails into his 
limbs and thrusting the spear into his side, that 
he himself was not being crucified, that only mor- 
tal garments were being torn off that his spirit 
might go free. He well understood that space 
and time, flesh and blood, have no belonging to 
the soul's realm ; so he could declare, without a 
guess or venture, 'If this outward body of mine 
be destroyed, I shall come to you within three 
days, because I am the resurrection.' In fulfil- 
ment of this promise, the Marys were greeted by 
him on that first Sunday morning that ever was, 
as they came to the tomb where his body had 
been laid. Peter and John, and the sojourners at 
Emmaus, were made inexpressibly glad as he ap- 
peared to them. They felt in duty bound to 
declare at once what they had seen, that the rest 
of the apostles and disciples might rejoice with 
them ; and as they were assembled for this pur- 
pose in a private room, who should put in his 
presence but Jesus himself, upbraiding them for 
their slowness of belief, or want of faith. To 
Thomas matter was more real than mind, hence 



26 NOBLE LIVING. 

he was not going to admit the resurrection true 
until he had put his fingers into the prints of the 
nails and the spear. The visible was more real to 
him than the invisible, the same as it had been to 
the Israelites, and especially to the Egyptians, 
who had built vast pyramids and cut into solid 
rock immense tombs for preserving the bodies of 
kings and honored men. But in the course of 
forty days from the crucifixion, all the apostles 
came to recognize Christ out of the flesh. After 
this insight and outsight were developed, what 
far-seeing men the chosen twelve became ! There 
was no more denying nor doubting on their part. 
They had now come to realize that men know one 
another only as they see soul to soul, — a fact 
which men have been slow to understand, though 
illustrated by daily experience in all the past. 
Without this faith-sight there can be no sweet 
home, no true friendship in the school, or cordial 
fellowship in the church. The descent of the Holy 
Spirit is naught but the mind's sighting God, the 
means through which we see the Father. In these 
latter days we have been hearing much about faith- 
missions, faith-healing, faith-science, and faith- 
works, and all these have more or less significance 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 27 

when fairly treated, and can be accounted for only 
on the ground of faith, which is just as real as the 
law of gravitation ; the first pertains to spirit, the 
latter to matter. They both work by invariable 
laws of their own. Faith is the vital principle of 
the spiritual life, just as much as breathing is the 
vital sustainer of the body ; and the flesh can exist 
just as well without pure air as the spirit without 
faith. This is the soul's Rock of Ages, on which 
it can stand, however terrific the storm or raging 
the flood. 

The following statements of Christ are in per- 
fect accord with this line of thought : " And he 
said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee 
whole ; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague." 

" And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way : thy 
faith hath made thee whole." 

" And he said to the woman, Thy faith hath 
saved thee ; go in peace." 

" Then touched he their eyes saying, Accord- 
ing to your faith be it unto you." 

" Again Jesus said unto him, If thou canst 
believe, all things are possible unto him that be- 
lieveth." 

We understand that all good things are possible 



28 NOBLE LIVING. 

unto God, and here Jesus informs us that all 
things unto men are possible so far as they can 
believe. So then our study should be to discover 
the law by which faith works. Then experiment 
with it as much as we may, it does seem to be 
no more nor less than clear-sightedness of God, 
or any good which is revealed through trust and 
confidence. 

When the first Christian martyr was led out of 
Jerusalem, and placed upon the projecting ledge, 
and the young Saul stood there, holding the gar- 
ments of the ruffians as they hurled the missiles 
of death at Saint Stephen, looking straight into 
heaven, he saw the glory of God, and prayed, "lay 
not this sin to their charge," and then fell physi- 
cally asleep, or, in other words, was translated. 
His sight of God was so clear as to render him 
sufficiently strong to return good for evil. No 
doubt that Saul was surprised at such a glorified 
departure ; and as he was sent forth not long after 
by the august Sanhedrim to demolish the little 
church, established in the name of Christ at Da- 
mascus, it is not strange, as he walked the paths 
made memorable by the beneficent deeds of Jesus, 
that he should have been so wrought upon as to 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 29 

have had his spiritual eye cleared in a manner 
to allow him to see Christ distinctly, whom he 
never had seen in the flesh. By this experience 
he was so transformed as to enter Damascus to 
bless all, and henceforth to love all men. This 
was no other than Paul, the scholar, who became 
the greatest of the apostles, enabling him to send 
forth the refrain, " Thanks be to God, who giveth 
us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

We can well understand how an artist can feed 
his mind so much on the skill and life of his 
master as to become like him, and so follow close 
in his footsteps. Thus it was with Leonardo da 
Vinci, as his great teacher, when becoming, feeble 
and unable to complete his last work, requested 
da Vinci to finish it. At first the apprentice felt 
that it would be impossible for him to attempt 
to put the finishing touches to a picture of his 
revered master, so skilled and exalted ; but as his 
beloved senior bid him do his best, he first knelt 
in prayer, asking, "O Lord, help me in my weak- 
ness, that I may do faithful service to my de- 
serving teacher, who has done so much for me." 
Upon this he took his brush, and became lost in 
doing his best; and after the finishing touch had 



30 NOBLE LIVING. 

been given it, the aged and cultured artist was 
brought into the studio on a litter, and as he 
looked upon the great work, in tears of joy he 
said, " I paint no more." 

Thus Paul caught such views of Christ in the 
spiritual life that he could but assert in most 
emphatic terms, " Now is Christ risen from the 
dead, and become the first-fruits of them that 
slept ; for if in this life only Ave have hope in 
Christ, we are of all men most miserable. As in 
Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made 
alive. For lie is to reign till he hath put all 
enemies under his feet. As we have borne the 
image of the earth)-, so we shall bear the image of 
the heavenly." Thus he declares that "faith is 
the evidence of things not seen " with the natural 
eye. Faith is the soul's eye to discover things 
invisible to the physical sight. For this reason, 
he says, "We now see through a glass darkly, but 
then we shall see face to face." In other words, 
in looking through mortal sight, we behold con- 
stant change and mystery; but seeing spiritually, 
we recognize God and our departed, as having 
personality. Such visions so tilled the heart of 
Paul that he most emphatically declared, "Here 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 31 

we know in part, but then shall we know as we 
are known." To him there Avas no such thing 
as ceasing to be, or lying dormant in the grave. 
The only possible death is moral death, the result 
of sinning. But as none can earn eternal life, so 
none can deserve eternal death. The apostle sets 
this matter clear when he affirms, "As a man sows, 
so shall he reap." Who could thoughtfully wish 
to have it otherwise ? Just recompense is what 
encourages righteousness and restrains wrong- 
ness. Paul makes death the gate which opens 
from the mortal to the immortal. He allows 
no dark angels to hover around it, but seraphs 
of light, to usher souls into eternal life. " Even 
so in Christ all are made alive." 

This was the experience of that band of Chris- 
tian women at the time of great persecution in 
France, as they were being led through the streets 
of Paris to the place of execution, enabling them 
to sweetly sing, "Lord Jesus, we come, we come." 
As they reached the block the lookers-on felt they 
had never heard such music before ; and the melt- 
ing strains did not cease as head after head fell 
to the ground, till the last one dropped from the 
block. Here faith did its perfect work. 



32 NOBLE LIVING. 

It is sad that the Christian world has been so 
reluctant in learning what is the true nature of 
faith. Too often it would seem that efforts have 
been made to render it obscure by belaboring it 
with theological definitions. Many apparently 
have been anxious to hang on its tree foreign 
fruit, yet striving to make it appear as though 
natural, which has been as inconsistent as it would 
be for an orchardist to buy apples, and hang them 
on his trees to secure a good crop. Fruit must 
grow, never be tied on ; this is the law of all 
kinds of fruit-growing. 

None can honestly question the need of faith. 
I exist, and I am conscious that I did not create 
myself, and had nothing to do or say about com- 
ing into this world ; therefore I know that some 
one higher than myself fashioned me, whom I call 
God. Now, faith in Him I need above all else, 
for by it I gain knowledge of him. Our senses 
tell us how things look, taste, smell, feel, and 
sound. Reason explains their relations, and how 
causes are certain to be followed by effects. Now, 
must there not be something beyond these? If I 
do not believe there is, I am wretched indeed. 
Modern investigation shows the boundaries of 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 33 

science and philosophy. Astronomy can take us 
only to the stars, not beyond them. Geology 
turns up the stony leaves of the earth, but cannot 
read to us a page of the how and why it exists. 
The entomologist, as he brings his glass to bear 
upon a drop of water, revealing myriads of mov- 
ing mites, can give us no explanation of their vital 
force, or how they came to live. Now, where 
science and philosophy end, faith begins ; and 
whosoever fails to be led on by its potency, falls 
prostrate at the first hill of the spiritual, and there 
he is likely to lie in the swamp and filth of agnos- 
ticism. Take your grandchild upon your knee, 
as some friend calls, and as his attention is di- 
rected to the bright boy, suppose he begins at 
once to expatiate about the boy's dress, stockings, 
shoes, and hair, saying not a word really about 
the child, that expresses so much through the eye, 
laugh, and gesture ; how would you like that 
treatment, and what would you say of it? Sup- 
pose the visitor should declare that all these pe- 
culiarities signify naught. Would you not feel 
inclined to apply to him the epithet, " a know- 
nothing " ? When invited into a German studio 
where a young sculptor was moulding an ideal 



34 NOBLE LIVING. 

statue of Abraham Lincoln in 1866, what if I had 
simply spoken of his plaster, trowel, and room, 
without expressing any admiration of the statue 
and its naturalness ; would the gifted artist have 
thought me compos mentis ? He could see so 
much beneath the exterior, he would have had 
reason at least to wonder why the stranger did 
not discover some of the real things which he was 
trying so hard to delineate. He might truthfully 
have said, the foreigner has evidently no mental 
eye, or vision of faith, whereby to discover the 
ideal and intrinsic. The author of Hebrews says, 
" By faith we understand that the worlds have 
been formed by the word of God, so that what 
is seen hath not been made out of things which 
do appear." Notice how he puts it, " By faith 
we understand." Accordingly, he regarded faith 
as something that comprehends, does actually see 
and understand. 

This view of faith was beautifully illustrated 
by Cecil's little daughter. One day, as she was 
happily playing with some inferior beads and 
other trinkets, the father said, " My child, please 
throw all those objects you have in your hands 
into the fire." Startled as she was, she looked 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 35 

up into her father's face to see if he were really 
in earnest, when he continued, "You know, my 
child, I never request you to do anything which 
I do not mean ; still, you can act your pleasure, 
obey or disobey, yet you know I never wish 
you to do any act* which I do not feel will 
work for your good in the end." Upon this 
the precious one sighed, but, mustering up cour- 
age, she cast all these keepsakes into the flames.. 
Upon this the father said, " There, let them 
vanish ; you shall hear more about them here- 
after." In the course of a few days the father 
came into his house with a whole box of play- 
things, larger and handsomer than the burned, 
and placed them in the hands of the daughter, 
saying, " These are yours, because you believed 
and trusted me, when I told you to throw away 
those inferior trifles. Now, by thus doing, you 
have gained these far more valuable keepsakes. 
Furthermore, I ask you always to remember that 
that working of your mind and heart which in- 
duced you to obey me is faith. Now, I would 
have you always do towards God, in his provi- 
dential dealings with you, as you have with me, 
and you will be a true child of faith." In this 



36 NOBLE LIVING. 

we see that her spirit of filial love overcame 
every other emotion or impulse, causing her 
to act altogether with reference to the unseen, 
thereby illustrating what faith is, and how it 
works. So, if we act towards God as this child 
did towards her father, we shall portray true 
faith, realizing in the end thrilling gladness and 
gratitude. 

In this age physical science is exceedingly fas- 
cinating. The botanist, as he analyzes plant and 
flower ; the geologist, as he studies pebble and 
bowlder ; the astronomer, as he explores planet 
and star; and the anatomist, as he dissects nerve 
and muscle, — often become so charmed with 
their specialities, as to infer that there can be 
nothing superior to them. As such attempt to 
account for organized life, it is usually on the 
ground that molecules chance to come together, 
and this will explain its origin ; or others assume 
that it has sprung from minute cells and eggs 
floating in the sap and blood, — and yet they 
have failed to tell whence came the first plant 
to produce the cell, or the first bird to lay the 

egg- 
Now, away with all such pretentious learning, 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 37 

and, like the child, bow before the superior, and 
we shall soon be taught how mind is more than 
matter, and spirit than flesh ; that soul-sight is 
real sight ; and so be made to understand that 
it is God who rounds the apple, and carves the 
pear, and paints them scarlet and russet; that it 
is God who lifts up the oak from the acorn ; 
that it is God who raises up the tiny child into 
noble manhood ; that it is God who, in spring- 
time, when the fields look bare and lifeless, lets 
fall the April sunshine and showers, and in 
the course of a few weeks spreads a carpet 
of emerald over the fields and woods ; that it 
is God who has caused the sixty different ele- 
ments so to combine as to produce an infinitude 
of worlds, and chained them together by gravi- 
tation. 

It is by faith that we understand who made 
all things good. Then, is it not needed? Try 
to account for the merest object without this 
help, and how we are staggered and soon floored. 
By it we discover how the higher is helping the 
lower ; the vegetable is moulding the mineral, 
the human the animal ; we come to realize that 
God is the cause of all this. As we examine 



38 NOBLE LIVING. 

and compare, we see how there is similarity of 
lives. The bee constructs its comb, the fox its 
burrow, the bird its nest, and man his dwelling, 
that all may have homes. Faith informs us that 
the how and why of this is God. He has filled 
the normal state of existence with fulness of 
joy ; for this reason the bug ticks in the wall, 
the cricket chirps in the grass, the frog whistles 
in the pool, the bird sings in the tree-top, and 
the little child laughs and sports on the lawn. 
Still, in spite of this similarity, there are un- 
likenesses. Man can reason, and do somewhat 
as he pleases ; but insect and beast must do as 
they are bidden. Faith sees that this is for 
the best. Without this gift, or quality of soul, 
blindness, perplexity, discouragement, and weari- 
ness of life would fret and discourage mortals. 
Faith keeps lifting up and pressing on, and 
whenever reason falters, it flies ahead and in- 
vites it on. When the latter anxiously asks, 
" Is man to live forever ? " the former opens wide 
the gate, and lets fall upon it the radiance of 
heaven. Now, as the latter applies its logic, it 
discovers how the mortal reaches perfection here; 
but man falls far short of it, so its conclusion 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 39 

is that man must continue to live beyond the 
physical. Then, as it discovers the adaptation 
of things, how the bird has wings and air has 
been made for their use; how fish have fins and 
water has been provided for them, — thus again 
it infers, as these wants are met, that, since man 
desires above all else to live forever, he must 
be gratified, and elsewhere than in this world. 

For the most part, faith takes up the work 
here and carries it on, making it plain why the 
flowers bloom, and so soon fade away ; why the 
rainbow arches the sky with glowing promise, and 
then so quickly disappears ; why myriads of shells 
radiate their beauty in the depths of the sea, with 
no eye to admire their charms. These disappear 
without having any dirge sung, because they were 
made for this world. But it is far otherwise with 
the child, the mature, and the old, as they go 
hence. We learn patience by long endurance ; 
we sow in tears that we may reap in joy, for the 
reason we were not made to finish our course 
here ; we barely gain the foot of the everlasting 
mountain ; we only get down to the beach of the 
great ocean of life. But the eye of faith descries 
the endless hereafter and scans an eternal future, 



40 NOBLE LIVING. 

rendering immortality a reality. Is not such a 
ken demanded? 

All this, and vastly more, exhibits the blessed- 
ness of faith. It tempers the whole soul and 
fuses it with truest fortitude. If poverty op- 
presses, dangers threaten, and sickness is unto 
death, it penetrates beyond the veil and runs for 
the goal. It makes life signify, not simply happi- 
ness, but development. How blessed the reveal- 
ment that man is always to grow ! Naught can 
surpass this fact and help so much while he is 
tabernacled in the flesh ; without it he groans and 
wearies of existence. 

When in the metropolitan church of Copen- 
hagen, I was delighted with Thorwaldsen's statue 
of Christ. Probably it is the most perfect repre- 
sentation of the Divine One ever made by human 
genius and skill. Long did the great sculptor 
enthusiastically and intently work upon it; but 
when it was at last finished, it is said that a deep 
sadness came over him, and, when asked the 
reason, his reply was : " My genius is failing me. 
Here is my statue of Christ ; it is the first of my 
works with which I have ever been satisfied. Till 
now my ideal has always been far beyond what I 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 41 

could execute; but it is no longer so. I shall 
never have a great idea again." Yes, to feel that 
we have attained to the pinnacle, and that we are 
to go no higher, is heart-crushing. 

But one under the exercise of devout Christian 
faith never suffers any such abrading disappoint- 
ment. Abraham left his native city, Ur, though 
he loved it dearly, and went with his aged sire to 
Haran to dwell, for he felt that he would have a 
better opportunity to grow ; and after he had ten- 
derly cared for his aged father and seen him 
through this life, then he journeyed far aAvay to 
Canaan, suffering severest hardships for the sake 
of worshipping unmolested the one living God. 
So he led his beloved Isaac to the mountain-top, 
and was ready to offer him a sacrifice unto God, 
for he Avas made to believe that would prove the 
best for his son and himself. He was especially 
guided by faith. 

The greatest human deeds have been done by 
men of faith. It was through the blessedness of 
faith that the Pilgrim Fathers settled this country ; 
that Livingstone opened up the heart of Africa; 
that Xavier bore the cross of Christ to India. This 
it was that sustained Galileo, Newton, Faraday, 



42 NOBLE LIVING. 

and Herschel in their researches. This gave un- 
failing courage to Paul and Peter, Luther and 
Murray. These were the glad servants of the 
Most High, whom they had come to know through 
faith. Thus conditioned, every true soul has gone 
out of this life glorified. Is this not true of Mary, 
who broke the vase of ointment and poured it on 
her Lord? She did the best she could, and her 
doing has lived as a memorial unto her through 
the centuries. The old artist in Paris, whose faith 
had led him into his garret out of sight of the 
world to mould a likeness of Christ, was building 
the best he could. As night came, and with it 
chilling frosts, the old man lay down to sleep. At 
midnight he was awakened by the freezing blast, 
and he arose, taking off his coat and coverlet, 
laid them carefully over his statue lest it might 
freeze, and then laid himself again on his pallet of 
straw. When the morning came a friend opened 
the door of the destitute studio, and lo, the statue 
was complete and safe, but its designer and exec- 
utor was cold in death ; he had given himself 
for his work. What a resplendent crown of bles- 
sedness rests upon his life ! The young Confed- 
erate soldier at the battle of Fredericksburg, after 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 43 

a bloody contest, heard groans and entreaties for 
water all through the night ; and as the dawning 
came he said to his general : " I cannot stand such 
beseeching any longer, and I am going to carry 
water to those poor suffering fellows." His com- 
mander said, " It will be death to you, if you 
attempt any such rashness." The reply was, " I 
have faith to believe that the Lord will not let the 
Union soldiers fire upon me in being merciful unto 
their wounded comrades." For an hour and a 
half he was distributing water to parched lips, and 
laying weary heads in the most comfortable posi- 
tion possible, and no harm befell him. Really, he 
must have experienced more solid happiness in 
that brief time than he would have realized 
in ordinary life during years of well-doing. 
So it is, faith renders the soul daring for the 
right, which is sure to be followed with great 
recompense. 

It is related of a young girl who manifested un- 
common loveliness of character, that she wore 
around her neck a chain with a locket attached 
to it, which she did not allow any one to open. 
But she was taken sick, and it would seem unto 
death ; and as one of her intimate companions 



44 NOBLE LIVING. 

was watching by her, she was permitted to open 
the keepsake, and there was found in it this writ- 
ing : "Whom not having seen, I love." Herein 
was revealed the secret of her purity. Faith in 
Christ had transfigured her life, and filled her 
soul with blessedness. This is the agency alone 
that can perfect human life. 

Nothing is sadder than to walk among incom- 
plete ruins. Perchance there were good begin- 
nings, but from uncalled-for reasons no finishing 
was given them. Thus it is with the young man 
who starts out from the old home full of promise, 
leaving expectant hearts behind, and enters a city 
career, paying more deference to outside show 
than to principle. In a few years his faults ex- 
pose him, and he falls ruined. The man who 
sacrifices his all for the sake of riches, that he 
may count his millions before the world, never 
using his means to improve society and make 
others wiser and happier, falls sooner or later 
amidst incomplete ruins. The sceptic who de- 
lights in tearing down, but proffers no substitute, 
never completes any work ; and, however long he 
lives, he finally falls under a mass of ruins. If one 
be born a philosopher, and by force of education 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 45 

is made a doubter and disbeliever in God and 
man, he never departs leaving a completed pile ; 
his shafts are broken and his foundations are sand. 
His only monument left is built out of the sand 
of remorse and wretchedness. 

Perchance there would be no mass of physical 
ruins at old Babylon, Palmyra, or Athens, had it 
not been first for the materialization of human 
character, and the obliterating of moral responsi- 
bility. Wherever affections have become fixed 
on things sensual, rendering spiritual progress 
impossible, obliteration has always sooner or later 
come to such men. The history of paganism, or 
atheism, is but one vast volume, delineating hu- 
man ruins. They are sure to be changed to 
violence in their action. With such men it is 
rumors of war, and wars continually. Edmund 
Burke estimates that such have destroyed upon 
the field of battle more than thirty thousand 
millions of human lives. They have influenced 
human legislators to enact cruel penalties. Pa- 
ganism has represented God revengeful above 
all other intelligences, rescuing the few and de- 
stroying the many. Barbarian philosophy 1ms 
pictured countless and unending ruins. A faith- 



46 NOBLE LIVING. 

less man is a failure, just as much as a steam- 
engine would be without fire or boiler. 

But the men of Christian faith have builded 
for the ages. Christ has been the chief est of all 
in the greatest works. As he walked amidst the 
shadows of time, he exhibited the splendors of 
eternity. He loved the lilies and stars as the Fa- 
ther's handiwork. He took little children in his 
arms and blessed them, and stimulated the ma- 
ture to highest endeavors. Faith did its perfect 
work in him, making his whole life redolent with 
blessedness. He gathered up what goodness he 
could from Confucian morality, from Brahminism 
in its grasp for the real, from Buddhism in its 
search for virtue, from Zoroastrianism in its eager- 
ness for more light, from the beautiful in Athens, 
and the law of Rome. He came not to destroy 
the dispensation of Moses, nor the songs of David, 
but to fill them full of the love of God. He 
so combined the good of the past, the present, 
and future, as to form a perfect doctrine. He 
breathed the good of all the world into his gos- 
pel. He built Christianity upon the blessedness 
of faith, infusing it with immortal vigor. This 
is the realization of a soul baptized into the pro- 



THE BLESSEDNESS OF FAITH. 47 

foundest faith. This makes it ready to hear what 
God has to speak, and do what he wills to be 
done. So his surrender is unconditional, ready 
to go whither duty bids, to bear any burden 
imposed, to make any sacrifice, however costly, 
hoping all things, and pressing towards his lof- 
tiest ideal. He incessantly struggles at his edi- 
fice of character, if he does not know whether it 
is to be finished according to his plan, or not, 
believing that it will go on to completion in the 
building not made with hands. He cannot dis- 
cover room enough in to-day for the blessings 
which he sights in to-morrow. Thus his own 
uncertainty results in the certainty of God. Ulti- 
mate failure, disaster, and destruction are impos- 
sible to him. 

The superlative blessedness of faith is, that it 
makes God the beginning of all good things. It 
sees him unfolding all souls in his tender em- 
brace, loving, chastening, and training, that they 
may develop as rapidly as possible from lower 
to higher orders. It writes " beautiful " over 
every tomb, setting ajar its door, where angels 
stand, sending out the consoling refrain, " He 
is not here, but is risen." 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 

— Z 

Frank Warren Whippen. 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 



A definition of love is as difficult to make 
as a definition of soul. We can describe love. 
We can see many of its component parts. But 
the aggregate of these parts leaves us far short 
of the whole. We can never define the supreme 
grace. 

In our common use of the word love, it has 
many objects. Men are said to love good and 
also evil, things and persons, one soul, a family, 
and a race. There is little in common between 
love of money and love of a friend, and a pity it 
is that the same word should stand for both. 
We crave names sacredly to be kept for the deep 
and holy things. If love is to stand for the su- 
preme affection of souls, other words should tell 
of the lower passions. 

There is some reason, however, in letting the 
word run over the wide scale. There is a com- 
mon factor. In each case the passion or the 

51 



52 NOBLE LIVING. 

affection' is a motive. Every state of the soul 
which we are inclined to call love has its effect 
as a powerful inner force. 

We see this true of the love of money. Men 
do everything for gain. Charity, friendship, 
honor, decency, and respect for the sacreclness of 
life itself, are all set aside in the face of that 
mighty passion. No wonder the truth has been 
magnified into the proverb, " The love of money 
is the root of all evil." All people have felt 
the motive. Idolatry, in many forms, has been 
local, and in the course of ages has passed away; 
but here is an idolatry that seems to have began 
with the beginning, and now, at the very close 
of the nineteenth century of the Christian era, 
shows little signs of ending. Men, not a few, 
love money now better than they love their next 
of kin, and better than they love righteousness or 
their God, — and this love is the mainspring of 
their lives. 

We turn gladly to more hopeful things, and 
one is the love of country. Here is a motive we 
can honor. This makes men brave and devoted. 
Our hearts are thrilled by the deeds of the pa- 
triots. . They take us to the eternal things. It 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 53 

is so with Arnold Winkelriecl, as he throws him- 
self onto the Austrian line, to make a way for 
the Swiss, and receives into his body a hundred 
spears. It is so with the Pilgrim Fathers, when, 
though exiled by the English king, they dare 
the stormy Atlantic and the wilderness in order 
to plant a colony for that king, because they love 
England so much. It is so with Washington 
and Lincoln, as they struggle on in the face of 
the greatest difficulties, in behalf of liberty and 
human rights and national union. 

All the patriots move us. The rehearsal of 
their devotion makes us more devoted. Our 
own national heroes are a part of our inheritance, 
and our emotion is as pure as the thoughts of 
angels, and powerful in the direction of good 
citizenship, when our hearts in song echo the 
sentiment of the poet's words : — 

" Thy name I love ; 
I love thy rocks and rills, 
Thy woods and templed hills ; 
My heart with rapture thrills, 

Like that above." 

Another form of this inner force is the love 
of nature. The result in this case may not be 



54 NOBLE LIVING. 

so striking as in many others, but it is as real. 
Among those elements in men's lives that may 
be said to run as undercurrents, few mean more 
than does a loving intimacy with the great world 
around us. He who loves nature has a set of 
motives which other souls lack. He is led by 
them out into her realm. He is made to see 
values which figures are powerless to express. 
In the woods, on the hills, by the rivers, the 
lakes, and the sea, he finds treasures, which any 
other of like spirit may also find, which are 
treasures indeed because they feed the soul. The 
love of nature banishes wantonness, and quick- 
ens the humanities. Souls blessed with it are 
moved to respect even the humblest life. Frank 
Bolles pauses to regret that he has unwittingly 
disturbed an ant-hill ; and such as he are re- 
luctant to tread down even the tiniest flower. 
Justice and sympathy are born of this spirit, and 
they reach to all the affairs of men. 

Plainly, love of any sort is a force. What we 
love we are interested in, and have an enthusiasm 
for; and wherever there is interest and enthu- 
siasm there is motive. And yet, there is a love 
that is pre-eminently strong, and in the motive 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 55 

that it supplies, supreme above all others. If 

love is "the highest word," this is the kind of 

love that exclusively may claim the name. Even 

the most tender affections must be passed by to 

see it in its completeness. 

It is more than the love between man and 

woman. And this is mighty. What will the 

lover not do for his beloved ! What will frail 

woman not endure and give up that she may 

have the companionship which her heart craves ! 

There is little extravagance in Shakespeare's 

lines : — 

" O, gentle Proteus, Love's a mighty Lord: 
And hath so humbled me, as, I confess, 
There is no woe to his correction, 
Nor to his service, no such joy on earth." 

But the supreme love is more than this. And 
to reach it we must pass by even the love of 
mothers. No love can be intenser than a moth- 
er's. All that soul can do for soul a mother will 
do for her child. Comforts she will forego, pride 
she will stifle, danger she will dare, starvation 
and death she will endure, for her child. Eliza, 
the slave-woman, whom Harriet Beecher Stowe 
has immortalized in story, leaping with her boy 



56 NOBLE LIVING. 

in her arms onto the floating ice of the Ohio, and 
passing desperately from one cake to another 
with bare and bleeding feet, bnt in safety, to 
the northern shore, is the heroic type of what 
this kind of love will prompt. No hardship or 
risk that can be named, whether it be of a mo- 
ment or of a lifetime, is too great for a mother's 
heart. 

The supreme love may not be intenser than 
such, but it is supreme even over the love 
of mothers, because it is far-reaching. The su- 
preme love overleaps the bounds of maternal 
love, and goes out to man as man, and out 
to God. When we talk about love as Christ 
talked about it, this is the love we mean. All 
other love is secondary, along the way it may 
be, to that warmth and sympathy of heart which 
directs itself to all humanity. This love is the 
divinely appointed bond, not simply between two 
souls, or a few, but between the souls of the 
race. Love is the recognition of the universal 
brotherhood. It is the realization of the com- 
mon Creator and the common blood of men. 

Love in a sense is before righteousness. The 
world was a sinful world, but God loved it so 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 57 

that he sent his Son to save it. Jesus loved sin- 
ners, and there is the secret of his power over 
them. So, in men, love does not vary with char- 
acter. Love takes note of character. It takes 
keener note of it than any other power. But 
it lives, and ofttimes sublimely, in spite of the 
worst in souls. 

Evil, it is true, cannot be loved with the love 
that we speak of now. The Devil, were there 
such a person, a person totally and hopelessly 
committed to evil, could not be loved. Love is 
a divine grace. Only those beings that have 
something of the divine within them, either ac- 
tual or potential, can be loved. But love can 
embrace wicked men, because in them there are 
godlike possibilities. 

Love is the ideal attitude of one soul toward 
all other souls. Nothing in earth or heaven can 
cancel it. The affection of a parent clinging to 
an erring child, sacrificing for him, patiently en- 
during for him, leading him home when he has 
so far lost himself that he must be led, follow- 
ing him to prison and to the gallows, and saying 
through it all, " He is my son," and ceasing 
never for a moment to yearn for him and love 



58 NOBLE LIVING. 

him, — the affection of such a parent, as far as 
quality is concerned, is the type of that love to 
which Christ has called the world ; and which, 
present in the soul, is life, the eternal life of God. 

Love, then, is a temper of soul. It is an inner 
grace. You cannot see it or take note of it by 
any of the senses. Its immediate results are 
all within. Longing, yearning, and ecstasy are 
words that tell its power. It is a solace and a 
peace to those that have it. At the still hour 
it is a blessing. 

But love is more than a temper of soul, more 
than an affection to be shut up and enjoyed, and 
so profited by. Love is an inner force. Present 
in souls, it moves them to deeds. Jesus said as 
much to Peter in that last conversation by the 
lakeside. Peter claimed to love his Master. 
Doubtless he did love him ; and yet, but a few 
days before, he had denied him three times, and, 
with the rest of the disciples, when the critical 
hour came, he had forsaken him and fled. Jesus 
says nothing about this now, but he teaches 
his lesson, nevertheless. Most impressively he 
couples two ideas that Peter, doubtless, had never 
before felt to be so close. Three times his Master 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 59 

asks him if he loves him. And to the answer, 
u yes," repeated with increasing emphasis, he re- 
sponds each time substantially in the same words, 
" Feed my sheep." Peter said, " I love." Jesus 
answered, " Serve, then. If you love me, be 
good and generous and helpful to me, or what 
amounts to the same thing, to your fellow- 
men." It seems as though Jesus would have 
Peter tell him, in answer to his question, not 
simply "yes," but as a far more significant an- 
swer, " Lord, I am going out to carry your mes- 
sage, and the forgiveness and peace which you 
have brought to me, to the world that needs so 
much. Lord, I love you, and to attest that love 
I am going to be your disciple in deed and in 
truth." This, at least, is what the reply of Jesus 
means. If Peter really loved him, he must do so. 
If he loved, his love must move him, it must be 
a force in him operative for the good which love 
must wish for men. 

And so, by this principle that love is an inner 
force, that, present in souls, it will in one way or 
another make itself felt, we have a test of love. 
No man need be in doubt as to whether the 
divine grace is his. If it is his to any marked 



60 NOBLE LIVING. 

degree, he will know it by what it makes him 
do. He cannot love much, and do nothing, or 
little. He cannot love, and shut himself up away 
from men. And he who finds himself so shut 
up, who has no generous impulses toward others, 
who is not impelled to deeds of mercy and help- 
fulness, no matter what his professions, or where 
his name is written, — he is as poor as the poorest, 
in the riches of the Master's kingdom. 

What, now, can love do ? To little Paul Dom- 
bey's question, "What can money do?" his father 
replied, " Money, Paul, can do anything." But 
even Dombey Senior, in response to Paul's per- 
sistent questioning, was obliged to admit limita- 
tions to the power of money. Money could not 
stay the hand of death, as it reached out for Mr. 
Dombey's wife, and it could not make little Paul 
a strong and robust boy. Mr. Dombey admitted 
this, but still his faith in the power of money 
remained unshaken. He did not recognize that 
in certain situations, where it is trusted very 
much, money is completely without avail ; that it 
cannot bring contentment, or joy, or peace ; that 
the richest may be miserable with his wealth. 

But the answer which Dickens puts into the 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 61 

mouth of Mr. Dombey is suggestive. Before 
the realization that money cannot do everything, 
we are prompted to ask, Is there anything power- 
ful to such a degree? Can we substitute any 
word for money in Mr. Dombey's statement, and 
let the statement stand? In one sense we can- 
not; with man some things are impossible. As it 
was with little Paul's dear mamma, and his own 
frailty itself, so it always is. The flame of 
our mortality will grow feeble, and flicker, and 
go out. And yet, in, another sense, we can sub- 
stitute a word for Mr. Dombey's money, and make 
his statement profoundly true. When we substi- 
tute the word love, we do this. Making allow- 
ance for the limitations necessary to man, love 
can do anything. 

It is wonderful in its power to make hearts 
glad. What sunlight is upon this earth and in 
our homes, love is in our hearts. It is the secret 
of spiritual health. We live through the influ- 
ences of love. Where love is there is security 
from life's trials. As in the deep sea, so here, — 

" There is a temple sacred evermore, 
And all the babble of life's angry voices 
Dies in hushed stillness at its peaceful door." 



62 NOBLE LIVING. 

Love is our support in solitude. No matter 
how far away from men we are, if we love, we 
are one with them in spirit. The tie can bridge 
the gulf of death. We grieve to be parted from 
our loved ones, but because we love them we can 
follow them on, and know them ours still. The 
love in our hearts, quickened by Christ, is the 
secret of our victory over death and the grave. 
So we can look into the face of our dear dead, 
and still thank God. 

This great sympathy can make one glad, too, 
in the society of strangers. There is no feeling 
of loneliness greater than that which comes over 
one in a crowd. The situation is sometimes like 
beiug at sea without water. Just as in such a 
case there is " water everywhere, and not a drop 
to drink," so in the crowd there are faces all 
about, but none with greetings. Such surround- 
ings may chill a soul like death, but they need 
not. A loving heart will find greetings. Faces 
will not seem cold or indifferent to him who 
really loves humanity. Though seeing them for 
the first time, he reads in them the universal 
traits. He sees in them trials and sorrows, hopes 
and joys ; and the pity and sympathy of his heart 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. ■ 63 

leave no room for loneliness. Such a soul will 
turn strangers into friends. 

Men have devised other plans for doing the 
same thing. The Masonic order and kindred 
organizations have this for a part of their object. 
By their mystic signs welcome is assured in 
strange cities and distant lands. This welcome 
is no doubt realized. And yet, in the long run, 
love is at the foundation even of this reception. 
The warm, generous hearts find the true friends 
even in the fraternities. Love opens every door. 
It is the universal passport. 

Love in the heart is a source of gladness be- 
cause loving is living. Love means spiritual 
health. Even sorrow and great trials do not 
cancel all life's gladness in the loving soul. Love 
never lets a soul come to that point where life 
seems not worth the living. On the other hand, 
it prompts continually to the thought, " How good 
it is to be ! " We have a kindred feeling on those 
rare days God gives us, when physical beauty and 
the winsomeness of nature in earth and air and 
sky are forced upon us. What we call the per- 
fect days fill our souls, and so this love of God 
and of man, filling men's souls, prompts them to 



64 NOBLE LIVING. 

cheerfulness and peace. Thank God for the per- 
fect days, and for the peace of the perfect grace. 

Thank God, too, for the activity of the perfect 
grace. Love can do well-nigh everything. It 
can influence souls for good. Men will listen to 
those who love them, those whose interest in them 
is genuine and sincere. Love is the secret of 
success in the great reforms. The human heart 
is reached by sympathy. Men demur at being 
treated simply as cases. They respond only feebly 
to mechanical appeals. Many things can be done 
by machinery, but saving souls is not one of 
these. Men are influenced for good by sympathy. 
Soul after soul has gone to the bad, and souls are 
still in that way, because no kind word has ever 
been spoken to them, and no hand, expressive of a 
warm heart, has grasped theirs to make them feel 
the universal bond. What pathos in the response 
of an abandoned soul when surprised by kindness, 
" No human being ever spoke a kind word to me or 
put a hand on me in any mood but hate and scorn 
before ! " — what pathos and what hope ! 

Love saves. It is well to call things by their 
right names. We hear and read a great deal 
in these days about the missionary spirit, and 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 65 

we should. All churches are trying to cultivate 
that spirit, and this is well. But this one truth 
we cannot for a moment afford to lose sight of, 
that the missionary spirit, in the missionary him- 
self and in those who send him, is not an ar- 
tificial and abnormal tiling, but at its heart 
this divine grace. Love is the missionary spirit. 
Love makes workers successful among the way- 
ward, the abandoned, and the ignorant ; and just 
in proportion to their love of humanity will 
churches have this much-talked-of grace. 

In the teacher love is worth more than brains. 
He may command, but he cannot inspire with- 
out it. One of the greatest elements of strength, 
and at the same time one of the profoundest 
needs in our public schools to-day, is men and 
women with hearts. Only by sympathy can 
teachers appreciate the needs or the capacities 
of their pupils. Only by loving familiarity with 
them can they impress them with the truth. 
Love gets behind the mere teaching of facts to 
their meaning. Without their meaning facts are 
well-nigh useless. The school-teacher wields a 
sceptre for good second to no other, if his heart 
beats warm and true. 



66 NOBLE LIVING. 

And with love is the solution of the social 
and economic questions that vex us. And there 
is no other solution. The great evil is, men do 
not love each other, do not feel the common 
bond. They are indifferent, selfish, cruel. They 
are separated into factions, and each looks upon 
the other with no sympathy. Eighteen hundred 
years and more ago the doctrine of the unity of 
the race was set forth, and men have not ac- 
cepted it yet. Remedies for existing evils there 
may he in legislation and in other devices, but 
the cure depends upon the softening of men's 
stony hearts. Men must think of each other, 
especially of people below them, " as if they 
were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not an- 
other race of creatures bound on other jour- 
neys." Love vanishes oppression on the one 
hand and envy on the other, and insures the 
true relation between men. 

It is the province of love also to promote 
righteousness. Love and unrighteousness do not 
accord. The heart warm with sympathy does 
no wrong to others, and at the same time is anx- 
ious that others shall be true. Dr. Livingstone 
had comparatively little trouble with the natives 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 67 

in the wilds of Africa. William Perm was re- 
spected and trusted by the American Indians, 
because he was kind to them, and because he 
treated them as brothers, and few men in his- 
tory have a nobler record than his. 

It is said sometimes to reformers, " These 
things are not your business, you are meddling ; 
take care of yourselves, and we will do the 
same." But the charge is made in error. A 
real interest in humanity cannot be content with 
wickedness. It is the business of love to seek 
to better the world, and to lessen the evil and 
the sorrow of it. 

Love chords only with the virtues. Those we 
love we want to be pure and good and true. 
There are many names applied by the lover, but 
the supreme of these is " angel." Parents wish 
various things for their children, but the su- 
preme wish runs out in the direction of charac- 
ter. Love in the hearts of fathers and mothers 
makes them desire above all things else that their 
boys and girls grow up manly and womanly. 

Love toward humanity may not be as intense as 
the lover's or the mother's, but in effect it must be 
the same. As a mother weeps over her straying 



68 NOBLE LIVING. 

boy, and as Jesus wept over Jerusalem, so hearts 
with love in them must sorrow before the wrong. 

And love must not only sorrow, but act. Love 
says, when confronted with a sadly erring soul, 
" I will try and help him. The weight is heavy 
on the side of sin ; I will throw all the influence 
I can bring upon the other side." Love always 
says this, for u love rejoiceth not in iniquity, but 
rejoiceth in the truth." 

Love shows itself an inner force when we think 
of self-sacrifice. Deny yourselves, Jesus repeat- 
edly said to his followers. And we cannot 
wonder that they failed to understand him, and 
that they disobeyed in this even in the most 
solemn hours. We can see how his followers 
later made their mistake and crucified their bodies, 
with the thought of thereby saving their souls 
and serving their Lord. The doctrine of self- 
giving rises grim and stern from every point but 
one. There all harshness is done away, and the 
light of heaven is on it. That point is love. In 
love is the motive. Denying one's self for the 
sake of denial is a stoical and profitless act. But 
denying one's self in order thereby to help another 
is grand. Suffering pain as an exercise is folly ; 



LOVE AS AN INNER FORCE. 69 

but suffering pain in another's stead, or for 
another's welfare, is blessed satisfaction. Such 
sacrifice is reasonable and natural. It is of the 
very essence of love to say, " Let me suffer for 
him." In love the apparent inconsistency between 
Jesus' call, "sacrifice yourselves," and the angel's 
message, " I bring you good tidings of great joy," 
is done away. Where love rules there is joy in 
giving one's self for others. 

Love is a bond of union where other things 
tend to keep souls apart. It is the ground upon 
which all differences sink away. Men may believe 
opposites, and yet be ■ one in sympathy ; they may 
have the prejudice of a life-time cancelled by the 
all-conquering grace. Stronger than prejudice 
was the aversion between Jew and Samaritan. 
Each was bred to hate the other. And yet love 
could overflow such hate. The Jew left for dead 
on the road to Jericho found a Samaritan's help. 
In spite of inherited hate, the Samaritan had a 
heart. He was willing to help even a Jew, and 
giving up to him his own beast, take his chances 
with him on a robber-infested road. 

And although times have changed, the Good 
Samaritan is a character as full of beauty to-day 



TO NOBLE LIVING. 

as lie was in the days of Jesus. Society is divided 
into factions iioav, as of old, and the church is 
divided. In religion men do not think alike or 
see alike. It does not appear that they ever will. 
But for that reason they need not be at variance. 
It is not creeds that keep the churches apart, so 
much as it is lack of knowledge one of another, 
and a spirit that comes very near a spirit of par- 
tisanship, and, above all, a lack of the loving 
spirit of their common Lord. 

This is where we should expect the trouble. 
We are called to live with the spirit of Christ in 
our hearts. Because we lack this spirit, we are 
cold and distant to the church people over the 
way. The receipt for Christian unity is growth in 
the divine grace. Souls moved by love will never 
turn contemptuously from any sincere soul, but will 
be ready and eager to give him the cordial hand. 

Love fails sometimes, but it fails because it is 
alloyed, because it is mixed with other things. 
Perfect love is the perfect motive. It is the 
motive of God, the motive of Christ, the motive 
to be sought and prayed for, and treasured and 
rejoiced in ; the motive that shall take the race 
on to the complete victory. 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



Edward Lovell Houghton. 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 



The chief object of this essay is not to prove 
that the Bible is a collection of inspired books in 
this or that sense, nor even that it is inspired at 
all. It is not to champion this or that view of the 
origin, authorship, and date of the several books. 
It is simply to take these books for what they are 
in themselves, as books which have sufficiently 
proved, by the spiritual experience of centuries, 
that they have spiritual profit in them ; and to 
offer some suggestions as to how the greatest 
possible measure of such profit may be realized 
for the needs of present every-day life. 

Questions of criticism have their own interest 
and importance. The practical significance of 
such questions, in their bearing upon the value 
of the Scriptures for spiritual profit, may easily 
be over-estimated, — - often has been, very greatly. 
By way of illustration, take two examples. 

Some critics say the Pentateuch was written, 
73 



74 NOBLE LIVING. 

or rather put into its present form, in the time 
of Josiah; Others, not until after the return from 
the Babylonian captivity. It is evidently a com- 
posite work, based upon several documents of 
widely different dates. Very well; what of it? 
Those critics whose opinions differ most from 
traditional views, although they do not say so 
as explicitly as might be desired, still admit that 
the substantial basis of the Pentateuch is made 
up of genuine history and genuine usages of the 
Mosaic epoch and earlier. The work of the later 
writers of these successive periods was, for the 
most part, simply that of editors. The Penta- 
teuch, as we have it, is substantially correct his- 
tory of the Mosaic and preceding epochs. The 
prophetic writings and the older Psalms may be 
older than the present form of the Pentateuch, 
as many critics, perhaps the majority, to-day hold, 
but have by no means yet been able to prove. 
To maintain that these writings would have been 
possible except on the foundation of the substan- 
tial contents of the Pentateuch, inwrought into 
the thought and life of the Hebrew people, would 
be like trying to balance a pyramid on its apex. 
The practical value of these or of any Old Tes- 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 75 

tament books for present spiritual profit is not 
affected one particle by modern critical theories. 
For another example, take the Fourth Gospel. 
Recent discoveries, particularly the most recent, 
that of the ancient Harmony of Tatian, may well 
be said to have rendered the opinion that this 
Gospel is a second-century document entirely 
antiquated, and to have settled it beyond ques- 
tion that it is the work of the Apostle John 
(with the exception, of course, of chap. xxi.). 
But suppose it were otherwise. Suppose it were 
a second-century document. The book is still 
what it is in itself ; incomparably the deepest, 
fullest, most sympathetic presentation of the life 
and character of Jesus we have. The truthful- 
ness of the picture is self-evident. No writer, 
even of the apostolic age, much less of that fol- 
lowing, could have invented it. It must have 
been drawn from the life. None could have 
overdrawn it. It is simply a question of differ- 
ent degrees of apprehension, all partial, by dif- 
ferent disciples of the Great Teacher. None of 
them, do his very best, could do more than pre- 
sent a partial picture of a figure too majestic to 
be fully comprehended. The real Christ must 



76 NOBLE LIVING. 

have been far greater than the most exalted 
picture we possess of him. John lived a much 
longer life, hence had more time for reflection, 
and a deeper and richer Christian experience 
than his fellow-disciples. He could apprehend, 
hence could remember and relate, many of the 
deeper things of his Master's teaching which they 
did not understand, and so forgot. This it is 
which makes the Christ of the Fourth Gospel 
so much greater than the same personage as the 
other evangelists present him to us. Not that 
the picture in the Fourth Gospel is overdrawn — 
that would be impossible ; but this writer gives 
a view which is nearer to the reality, the reality 
itself being still far beyond this or any possible 
portrayal. It is this quality which makes the 
Fourth Gospel the richest, the most valuable for 
spiritual profit, of all the biographies of Jesus. 
And this is equally true, whenever and by whom- 
soever written. 

Taking the Bible, then, for what it is in itself, 
without regard, except incidentally and in very 
subordinate degree, to critical questions of date 
and authorship, without regard to the question 
of its inspiration, except as its divine character 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 77 

may appear from the internal evidence of its 
own contents, let us ask how this book may be 
used so as to yield the greatest possible degree 
of practical spiritual benefit. The Bible has nour- 
ished the spiritual life of many thousands for 
many centuries. The same spiritual needs exist 
under the changed conditions of modern life. 
How may the Bible be made to minister most 
fruitfully to those needs? 

1. Point of view. — Scripture is not all alike, 
nor all of equal value, particularly not for pur- 
poses of spiritual profit. Furthermore, it does 
not follow, because certain Scripture is not suit- 
able for use in a certain way, that it may not 
have large value when used in another, the right 
way. 

An especially broad distinction exists, and 
therefore should be made, between the Old Tes- 
tament and the New. Not only should a broad 
distinction be made, but the right one. It is 
important not only to avoid the formerly more 
prevalent mistake of regarding the whole Bible, 
Old Testament as well as New, as the one per- 
fect moral and spiritual guide for all time ; it 
is even more important to guard against the 



78 NOBLE LIVING. 

opposite error, now far more common, that the 
New Testament alone has any present spiritual 
value, the Old Testament being altogether anti- 
quated and valueless. 

The moral standard of the Old Testament is 
manifestly imperfect. It is folly to attempt to 
deny that fact ; very unfortunate to fail to real- 
ize it fully, and the significance of it. Does it 
mean that the Old Testament has no divine ele- 
ment in it, and no present spiritual value? Or 
is there a point of view, thereby proved to be the 
right one, from which, in spite of its imperfec- 
tions, yes, in part even by means of them, both 
the divine element and the power of spiritual 
instruction may be clearly seen ? 

One of the prophets has what comes very near 
being an explicit statement of such a point of 
view. God is represented as saying (Hos. xi. 
3), " I taught Ephraim to go, taking them by 
the arms." Ephraim is the Hebrew people, of 
whose history, laws, customs, political fortunes, 
religious aspirations, and apostasies the Old Tes- 
tament is a partial record. The figure is that of 
a mother teaching her child to walk, taking it by 
the arms, and thus guiding and supporting its 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 79 

first feeble, tottering steps, until it is able to go 
alone. God says his procedure with the Hebrew 
people has been like that of a mother training 
her child. Does not the figure fit the facts? 

Suppose we take our stand at Mount Sinai. 
We shall thus be led directly to the consideration 
of the chief defects of the Old Covenant, therefore 
to the chief obstacle in the way of the traditional 
view of the equal value and perfection of all 
Scripture. It may be that we shall find in these 
very things, when looked at from the right point 
of view, even deeper lessons of divine wisdom 
and love than could possibly have been obtained 
under the former view. Here is the Hebrew 
people, ignorant, childish, passionate, stiff-necked, 
just released from centuries of hard bondage. 
This people is to be trained to become the cen- 
tre of moral and religious light for all the world. 
A tremendous task, worthy indeed of divine 
power, if not beyond even that ! Now, upon 
sound human principles of education, how may 
the divine wisdom be expected to attack such a 
problem as this ? For principles which are really 
sound as human principles are also sound as di- 
vine principles. 



80 NOBLE LIVING. 

It is a cardinal principle of all successful edu- 
cation not to attempt to teach everything at once; 
to teach first those things which are most funda- 
mental and necessary, and to adapt the teach- 
ing always to the capacity of the pupil. Even 
the perfect wisdom and power of God must be 
limited, in the moral and spiritual education of 
his children, by their capacity. Even he cannot 
at once do as he would, but must do as he can. 

Applying these principles to the task of the 
moral education of a childish people like the 
Hebrews, we should expect that the moral code 
first proclaimed to such a people would be direct 
and specific. It will not be a single principle of 
life, nor a set of principles, leaving the people to 
work out and apply them for themselves. Such 
a procedure belongs to a more advanced stage of 
moral education. It is not adapted to the begin- 
ning. It will say to them, Thou shalt do this, 
and Thou shalt not do that, of a considerable 
number of specific outward acts. Is not this an 
accurate description of the Mosaic legislation? 

We should expect, secondly, that the list of 
specific things thus prohibited would by no means 
include everything now considered clearly wrong 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 81 

under an advanced Christian civilization. It is 
probable, rather, that the worst, most fundamen- 
tal, most destructive sins will be fixed upon — 
those most absolutely fatal to the life of the na- 
tion and to its success in its mission. These will 
be prohibited absolutely, under the most stringent 
penalties. Other things, to us as clearly wrong 
as any prohibited, but not so fatal to the life of 
the nation or to its fitness for its mission, might 
be treated in the partial way next to be referred 
to, or even entirely ignored. 

We should expect, in the third place, that 
many evil things which were not so vitally re- 
lated to the existence and mission of the nation, 
which, moreover, were matters of deeply seated 
custom, and therefore could not be made to seem 
wrong to them as they do to us, would be not 
prohibited, but hedged about with restrictions 
designed to lessen their evil results — leaving 
their absolute prohibition as sins to be the work 
of the greater moral enlightenment to come later. 

In the light of these two last-mentioned prin- 
ciples of wise moral education, let us look once 
again at the Old Testament legislation, both as 
to what it forbids and as to the way it treats 



82 NOBLE LIVING. 

evil things which it does not forbid. There are 
two sins against which the whole Old Testament 
is especially severe — the worship of false gods 
and impurity. Bearing in mind the mission of 
this people to he the centre of religious light 
for the world, the wisdom of such a course is 
manifest. The two sins were closely related. 
Impurity was associated with, a part of, the reli- 
gious rites of the nations round about the He- 
brews. They themselves were especially prone 
to it. No sin is so destructive to a people's 
usefulness and even existence as this. A pure 
worship and a pure life this nation must pre- 
serve ; else it could not succeed in its mission. 
And, although only after many falls, they at last 
learned the lesson ; and when Christ came with 
the new, perfect law which was to supersede the 
old, imperfect one, he found a people who, though 
marred by many faults and grave, were yet re- 
markably pure in worship and life, and that in 
an age of unexampled profligacy. 

On the other hand, the Old Testament legisla- 
lation does not forbid human slavery. It was a 
common custom, .and recognized as such in the 
law. But note how the institution is surrounded 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES 83 

by beneficent checks. The slave must refrain 
from labor on the Sabbath as much as his master. 
If a Hebrew, he must be treated rather as a hired 
servant than a slave, and at the end of six years 
must be set free again. The position of foreign 
slaves was less favorable ; but if a master mur- 
dered his slave, he was punished with death the 
same as if he had killed a freeman. If he destroyed 
his eye, or struck out a tooth, the slave must be 
given his liberty. A very different institution 
this from other ancient slavery, — equally so from 
most modern. 

Polygamy was also a common custom of the 
time. It would have been impossible to make the 
Hebrews see that it was wrong. The time was 
not ripe to prohibit it altogether. So the law 
contented itself with prohibiting certain improper 
marriages, and limiting the loose divorce practices 
of other nations, whereby the husband might dis- 
miss his wife at pleasure, not, indeed, to the 
extent of the Christian law, yet so as materially 
to diminish the evils of the common custom. 

The custom of blood-vengeance, by which it 
was looked upon as the duty of the nearest rela- 
tive of a murdered man to pursue and slay his 



84 NOBLE LIVING. 

murderer, was, and still is, very firmly fixed in 
the Oriental mind, as in some other people's. To 
eradicate it would have been impossible. Hence 
the institution of the six cities of refuge in differ- 
ent parts of the land, to which the slayer might 
flee from the avenger of blood, and there be safe 
until he could have a fair trial. 

The law provided that, in certain cases, the 
rulers might even stone to death a stubborn child. 
We should regard such an act as murder, and 
rightly. But when we reflect that the common 
custom and thought of the time gave a father 
absolute power of life and death over his house- 
hold, this provision, with its safeguards, takes on 
a very different, a positively beneficent, aspect. 

These illustrations will sufficiently justify the 
position before taken, that there is a point of 
view, thereby proved to be the right one, from 
which, in spite of its imperfections, in part even 
because of them, both the divine element and the 
power of spiritual instruction in the Old Testa- 
ment may be clearly seen. This point of view is 
that of the education of a morally imperfect, 
childish people to be the centre of religious light 
for the world. Moral teaching meant for such 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 85 

a people will necessarily, hence rightly, be im- 
perfect. It is not to be judged by its intrinsic 
contents, like the Christian teaching, but by its 
tendency. We are to accept nothing, as a prac- 
tical guide for present life, which falls below the 
highest standard of the Christian consciousness, 
enlightened to the utmost by the highest teaching 
of the Christian law, interpreted by the best 
Christian experience. Yet these older Scriptures, 
when viewed from this standpoint, will be found 
to contain spiritual riches scarcely inferior to the 
New Testament itself. 

They are valuable as history. All history is 
pervaded by the divine presence, and is full of 
spiritual teaching for those who have the open eye 
to see it, but no other to such an extent as that 
of the Hebrew people. They are particularly 
valuable as the self-evident record of the particu- 
lar dealings of God, the great Teacher, with a 
particular people, intended for a mission wholly 
different from that of any other. Looked at from 
the vantage-ground of these Christian centuries, 
and from the true point of view, the wisdom and 
love of the Heavenly Father shine out scarcely 
less when, far back in the dim ages of antiquity, 



86 NOBLE LIVING. 

he condescended to the weakness, the imperfec- 
tion, the hardness of heart, of his wayward chil- 
dren, and took the best means, imperfect and rude 
and severe as they oftentimes were, to teach them 
the first fundamental lessons which they must 
learn, in order to be fitted for their great mission 
to the world, — scarcely less manifest, to us, are 
his wisdom and love in these preparatory stages of 
man's moral education, .when,, like a mother teach- 
ing her child to walk, he taught Ephraim to go, 
taking them by the arms, than in the final and 
perfect stage of God manifest in the life and 
teachings of Jesus Christ. 

That life and its teachings are the height and 
centre of all the Scriptures. Judge all, as to con- 
tents, by this standard. But let it not be for- 
gotten that not all, perhaps not the chief part, of 
the spiritual value of many Scriptures is in their 
direct teaching. This ought often to be utterly 
rejected, while the very same writings may have 
very great spiritual riches, to be seen only from- 
the right standpoint. All before the Christ is 
preparatory ; all after, the working out, more or 
less perfectly, of what is in his teachings. The 
point of view is all important, that the real riches 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 87 

of all the Scriptures, both Old and New, may be 
found, and turned to the greatest possible spiritual 
profit. 

2. Topical Study. — Beside the reading of favor- 
ite passages in the Bible for devotion, for comfort, 
for spiritual sustenance, which has been a common 
practice all through the Christian ages, a more or 
less systematic topical study will be found to yield 
very great spiritual profit. The plan of reading 
the Bible through in course, so many chapters a 
day, leaves much to be desired, especially in the 
Old Testament. The attentive reader will not 
fail to gather many pearls even thus ; but there 
is a more profitable way to spend what time one 
has to give to study of the Scriptures. Aside 
from the more ambitious topical analyses, of which 
there are many, even the busy reader, who can 
have at the most but a brief time for such study, 
may use the topical method to some extent, and 
with much profit. In your reading you come to a 
view of God's providence, of man's nature, duty, 
or destiny, of sin, temptation, forgiveness, which 
arrests your attention. A natural question is, 
Just what does the writer mean ? What does he 
say elsewhere on the same subject ? What do 



88 NOBLE LIVING. 

other biblical writers say about it? The Scrip- 
tures have a vocabulary of considerable extent 
and striking power, which is peculiar to them- 
selves and the literature founded upon them. To 
grasp fully the meaning of these peculiarly Chris- 
tian words and phrases is to understand Christian- 
ity itself; to fail to do so is to be certain not to 
understand it. What does Jesus mean by eternal 
life, the day of judgment, the kingdom of God? 
What does Paul mean by justification, the flesh, 
the spirit, faith, works, grace ? Commentators 
will give you their opinion. That may be good 
and helpful. It is better that you make up your 
own opinion by topical study of the writer him- 
self, which, indeed, in the main, is the very way 
in which the commentators made up theirs. The 
marginal references to be found in many Bibles 
will help you. Any good concordance will help 
you. The more elaborate topical analyses will 
help you still more if you can have more time 
for study. And the more you study the Scrip- 
tures in this way the greater the spiritual riches 
they will unfold to you. 

3. Biographical Study. — Let the Bible be 
looked upon as a book, not of dogma, but of 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 89 

life, — not even of life in the abstract, but of par- 
ticular, actual human lives. Religion has lost 
nearly all its possible value when it is regarded 
as solely or chiefly a system of impersonal institu- 
tions, laws, and doctrines. The Christian religion 
has its great doctrines indeed, but they are doc- 
trines alive, working in the living hearts of living 
men. It can be of value to us or to any one only 
as it comes into our lives, and with living power 
uplifts and transforms them. Nothing will con- 
duce so much to this result, which is the spiritual 
profit for which the Scriptures are designed, as 
to study them in this way — not as mere doctrine, 
but as doctrine engaged in its proper work of 
moulding the character of one and another living 
man. Study the Scriptures as books of biography. 
Let the characters found there be real, living men 
and women. 

If we regard and study the biblical books and 
characters in this way, it will speedily be borne 
in upon us, how very modern, after all, is this 
old Book — or, rather, how independent of all 
ages — in its essentials ! The outward details of 
expression, manner, custom, are often strange, 
sometimes even grotesque, to our thought. But 



90 NOBLE LIVING. 

underneath all this is the same human nature, 
weak, imperfect, yet godlike, suffering, sorrowing, 
sinning and repenting, loving, as at present. And 
there is the same Heavenly Father guiding, bless- 
ing, reproving, training his children ; in each age 
adapting his teaching to their capacity with the 
same unerring wisdom shown in later times. The 
lives of these ancient worthies, — and unworthies 
too, — the mouthpieces, and objects, and instru- 
ments, just as in different ways men and women 
of later times have been, of that divine grace 
and wisdom which are unchanging and eternal, 
may be means of great spiritual profit to us. 

Study the character of Abraham. Note the 
effect it had upon him to be called, in whatever 
way, from the midst of a nation of idolaters, and 
made the possessor of the great truth that God is 
one. See how this great idea, coming to that man 
away back in the dim ages of the past, in the fresh 
force of its newness, wrought upon his mind. To 
us this idea is matter of inheritance. Let us put 
ourselves, so far as possible, in the place of one to 
whom it came for the first time, as a new thing, 
and its living power over ourselves cannot fail to 
be greatly increased. 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 91 

Study Moses, the great leader and lawgiver of 
Israel. His was one of the master-minds of the 
world. No critic makes him a myth, or essentially 
alters the main facts of his life and character. 

Study Elijah, the earnest and fiery prophet of 
God. Behold him as he rebukes the wicked king 
and queen of Israel, or as he stands, the sole 
prophet of the Most High, before the four hun- 
dred prophets of a false god. Correct, if you will, 
what is savage and imperfect in him by the exam- 
ple of Jesus when facing the representatives of 
evil under somewhat similar circumstances, and 
then let the ancient prophet teach you a lesson of 
moral courage. It is a lesson as much needed in 
these times of peace and luxury and secret corrup- 
tion, as in those of violence and open profligacy. 

Let Achan impress with the fateful progress 
from gazing upon the evil thing to coveting, then 
to sin and its awful consequences. Let Balaam 
warn us against the fatal infatuation for material 
gain which makes deaf to the commands of duty, 
and blind to the inevitable triumph of God and 
righteousness. 

The life of David will have many lessons for 
us, — some of the highest uplifting power, in 



92 NOBLE LIVING. 

which he will seem to raise us almost to the Chris- 
tian level ; some of the most solemn warning, 
when he descends to the depths of the grossest 
sins ; again, and perhaps the most valuable of all, 
in his equally deep repentance, and in the inevita- 
ble retribution which, repentance or no repent- 
ance, every sin of itself Avorks out upon the 
transgressor. 

Turn to the New Testament. Study John the 
Baptist, the humble forerunner of the Christ, of 
whom he said, " Among those that are born of 
women there hath not arisen a greater than John 
the Baptist." Note his utter humility and faith- 
fulness to his own comparatively lowly mission in 
the face of temptation to assume a higher. " Art 
thou the Christ? No. Art thou Elijah? No. 
Art thou the prophet? No. Who then art thou ? 
I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
Prepare ye the way of the Lord." To his disci- 
ples, over-zealous for his honor, on which the ris- 
ing fame of the new teacher seemed to them to be 
encroaching, he said, " He must increase, but I 
must decrease." Yet there was, with the humil- 
ity, a courage and fiery zeal for duty which could 
face the severest test without flinching, — whether 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 93 

it be the arrogance of the corrupt Pharisees, or 
the anger of an abandoned queen, bringing with 
it the prison and the headsman's block. 

Read Paul, not for the doctrine alone, but to 
see the man behind the doctrine. Make him a 
companion, a familiar one. Let him speak to you 
as he did to the Romans, to the Corinthians, to the 
Philippians, to Timothy. Let his great personal- 
ity, shining out through his writings, have its 
natural effect upon you. It cannot fail to be up- 
lifting and spiritually profitable. John, the be- 
loved disciple, whose long life and ripe Christian 
experience enabled him at last to give us a higher, 
fuller, more sympathetic view of his Master than 
any one else, is valuable to us not only for that, 
but also for himself, to teach us by the power 
of his own personality that spirit of love which 
he set forth so clearly as the central principle of 
Christianity. 

Peter, the impetuous disciple, James, the apostle 
of common sense, Stephen, the first martyr, beside 
many others of whom we know less, may be made 
productive of much spiritual profit, especially 
when studied not only for what they teach in 
word, but as living men, like ourselves, worked 



94 NOBLE LIVING. 

upon by the same gospel, living, under human 
conditions, with human excellences and human 
imperfections, the life of service of the same 
Master, 

Above all, study the life and character of the 
Christ himself. A marked difference will soon 
make itself manifest. All the others, great men, 
very great though some of them were, were yet 
evidently altogether men like ourselves, and fully 
comprehensible. Here we are conscious of some- 
thing beyond our comprehension. In all the 
others weaknesses and imperfections could be dis- 
covered ; some were guilty of flagrant and open 
sin ; the chief lesson to be derived from some of 
them was one of warning. Here all is purity 
and perfection. Jesus is perfectly human, and 
yet there is nothing human about him in the 
sense in which we often use the word, as imply- 
ing weakness, imperfection, sin. He is not such 
as we actually are ; but he is what we ought to 
be, what we have the possibility of being, what 
we are destined to become. Notwithstanding the 
fact that he is so far above our present powers of 
comprehension, indeed precisely because of it, 
he is our supreme model. 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 95 

There is no possibility of fabrication here. 
There were none then, there never have been any, 
competent to such a task. The fabricator of such 
a character as that of Jesus would be more won- 
derful than Jesus himself. 

Then let the Christ be a real and living person- 
ality to you. Let the Christ himself look at you, 
speak to you, live before you, die in your sight. 
Join the band of his disciples, and go in their 
company and his over the mountains of Juclea, 
across the lake of Galilee, to Capernaum and 
Sychar and Jerusalem. Walk with him through 
the fields, and let him unfold his parables to you. 
Sit at his feet as he speaks the Sermon on the 
Mount ; stand with the woman by the well in 
Samaria, and let him teach you as he taught her ; 
go with him and the two disciples on the walk to 
Emmaus. Follow him to the wedding in Cana ; 
to the temple enclosure, where he contends with 
scribe and Pharisee ; to the tomb of Lazarus ; 
and finally to Gethsemane and Calvary. Such 
intimacy with the matchless personality of Jesus 
cannot fail to bring rich spiritual profit — far 
richer than the study, however diligent, of the 
mere letter of his teachings. 



96 NOBLE LIVING. 

4. Helps. — Helps are good, but there is need 
of discretion, both as to numbers and manner of 
use. Over-many helps and commentaries are oft- 
times like burying one's self in the midst of a 
mountain forest, when what is really wanted is an 
unobstructed view . from the summit. One will 
often feel the need of returning to the Scripture 
itself to refresh its own direct impression upon 
the mind, and to recover from the feeling of con- 
fusion very likely to be the result of reading 
many differing, perhaps conflicting, views about 
the Scripture. Use helps, so far as they are helps. 
They may suggest to you many a thought of spir- 
itual profit which might otherwise escape your 
attention. But never let them deprive you of 
your own judgment as to the inner meaning of 
any passage you are studying. Helps used for 
the purpose of obviating the necessity of doing 
your own thinking and using your own judgment 
are not helps, but hindrances, to obtaining spir- 
itual benefit from the Scriptures. Nor let outside 
helps overshadow the best of all interpreters of 
the Bible, which is the Bible itself. 

Excellent helps in scriptural study, available 
for all, are such as a good Teacher's Bible, with 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 97 

its marginal references and other helpful mat- 
ter ; a good concordance ; such works as Geikie's 
Hours with the Bible, for the Old Testament, his 
Life of Christ, and Conybeare and Howson's St. 
Paul, for the New. These works are not contro- 
versial, nor mainly critical, but helpful ; and a 
knowledge of the original tongues is not necessary 
in order to make large use of them. 

Use the Revised Version. It often leaves some- 
thing to be desired in felicity of expression as 
compared with the old version ; but its painstaking 
accuracy resolves many a perplexity, and brings 
out here and there not a little of beauty and sug- 
gestiveness which would never occur to a reader 
of the old. For examples, see Ps. lxxxiv. 5, 6 ; 
John iv. 27 : [his disciples] marvelled that he 
talked with the woman (old version) — quite 
colorless and devoid of suggestion ; they mar- 
velled that he was speaking with a woman (Re- 
vised Version) — a change of the article only, yet 
immediately suggestive of the Oriental idea that 
it was unsuitable for men to hold converse with 
women upon high themes, or indeed any conver- 
sation at all except the briefest possible upon the 
most commonplace and necessary matters ; and 



y» NOBLE LIVING. 

secondarily, of the wonderful change in the posi- 
tion and treatment of women wrought in the world 
by the power of the teaching and example of him 
who, so many centuries ago, sat wearied by the 
well in Samaria, and gave the water of life freely, 
just exactly as he did to men, to this sinful, but 
thirsty-souled woman. Similar cases, where the 
Revised Version resolves some perplexity of the 
old, or throws some new light upon the Scripture, 
are to be found on almost every page, especially 
numerous, perhaps, in the Psalms and Pauline 
Epistles. 

Such reading and study of the Scriptures can- 
not fail to reveal ever greater spiritual riches in 
them. One must not commit the old error of ex- 
pecting to find, in all parts of the extensive and 
varied library of sacred books which we bind 
together and call the Bible, equal measure of spir- 
itual value. Nor must he fall into the opposite 
error of supposing that parts of it which have 
been superseded in their direct teaching by the 
coming of later and higher revelations, may not 
still have very large spiritual value when viewed 
from the right standpoint, and used in the right 
way. The point of view is all-important. 



THE RICHES OF THE SCRIPTURES. 99 

Let the study be often topical, so as to yield a 
comprehensive view of what the whole Scriptures 
teach on this or that matter respecting God, his 
character and relation to his children, and man's 
nature, duty, and destiny. Let it be often bio- 
graphical, that so, beholding the divine teachings 
of the Scriptures working themselves out in actual 
human lives, these teachings may have more of 
living power, and so of spiritual profit, for our 
own lives. Make use of all good helps, but do 
not overestimate their value, nor allow them 
to overshadow the best of all interpreters of the 
Scriptures, the Scriptures themselves. 

Finally, let it not be inferred from the ques- 
tioning of traditional opinions and the conflicting 
views of scholars upon matters of literary criticism 
that the spiritual value of the Scriptures is in any 
wise diminished, made doubtful, or greatly affected 
in any way. The chief part of what the Scrip- 
tures are, they are in themselves. The spiritual 
power of the Scriptures through the centuries past 
has not been dependent upon particular views of 
the origin and authorship of the separate books, 
nor is it so dependent now. Questions of literary 
criticism have their own interest, but only slightly, 



100 NOBLE LIVING. 

if at all, do they affect the chief value of the 
Scriptures, which is in their power of spiritual 
uplifting, instruction, suggestiveness. It is in the 
hope of aiding in the search for these spiritual 
riches of the Scriptures that the suggestions of 
this essay have been made. 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 



What is man? When that question is an- 
swered, we have determined the possibilities of 
human nature and the methods of moral develop- 
ment. Then we can prophesy with comparative 
accuracy, and foretell whether a human being is 
to be content with a vision from the level of 
experience and observation, or whether he, inevi- 
tably, will be dissatisfied until he looks out upon 
the world of life from the summit of attainment. 
And if he has within him innate propulsive en- 
ergy, — energy which compels him forward and 
upward, — we can, if we understand aright the 
nature of that energy, be able to affirm what its 
propulsion can accomplish of itself, and as to 
whether there will be need of any supplementary 
agency to bring man to the condition in which 
he will find absolute satisfaction. 

As soon as we enter upon the path of investi- 
gation we are met by those who have made a 

103 



104 NOBLE LIVING. 

study before us, and they begin to advise and 
to admonish. It is boldly and unhesitatingly 
asserted by some that man is a creature of dust; 
that all we see and all we know is simply the 
activity of matter. The record of Genesis, it is 
affirmed, has at least one fact when it says that 
man was formed of " the dust of the ground.' 5 
It may be that the dust has become highly 
attenuated ; that it has changed its form, and 
made its appearance in new and subtile fashions. 
Nevertheless, it is dust. A certain physicist says, 
" I do not know of a single naturalist of any 
distinction in the world who does not think and 
say that all phenomena exhibited by plants and 
animals are due to physical and chemical causes 
alone." And he quotes another as saying that 
" certain it is that life is a chemical function." 

This means that we are, as persons, in every 
particular, identical in primal constituent ele- 
ments. Man is nothing more than the sand be- 
neath his feet, when that sand is sufficiently " at- 
tenuated." What we are is " flesh," and " of the 
earth, earthy." In the last analysis there is one 
substance — matter, having at least two phases 
of manifestation. A psychologist affirms that, 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 105 

" Mind and body, consciousness and brain, are 
evolved as different forms of expression of one 
and the same being." "We have no right to 
take mind and body for two beings, or substances 
in reciprocal interaction. On the contrary, we 
are impelled to conceive the material interaction 
between the brain and nervous system as an outer 
form of the inner ideal unity of consciousness." 
" Both parallelism and proportionality between 
the activity of consciousness and cerebral activity 
point to an identity at bottom." 

The conclusion is, therefore, that we are 
bodies, flesh and blood. About us there is 
nothing else. We are beings made up of in- 
numerable atoms. Says a scientist, " By a body, 
then, we mean a local habitat for a living thing ; 
we also mean the living thing itself." 

Glad as we are to know what the naturalist 
thinks, we continue our research because we be- 
lieve there are others just as eager for the truth 
as is he, others who are just as competent to 
inform us as is he. We do not believe that 
even naturalists have learned all there is to learn, 
or that wisdom will depart from this life with 
them. They have many facts, it is true ; but they 



106 NOBLE LIVING. 

theorize about the facts they hold, just as do 
other people. 

By the psychologist we are told that there is a 
realm of phenomena which is radically different 
from that to which our attention has been called. 
Have we not some power or powers besides those 
of touch, taste, sight, and smell? Is everything 
to us simply sense-perception? Do we know 
nothing otherwise? Not that we must believe 
with the Platonists that original ideas and first 
truths are known by some special sense called the 
" Divine Reason ; " nor with the Schoolmen that 
those truths are discerned by "light of nature" 
and the "light of reason;" nor with Descartes 
that they are " innate in or connate with the 
soul ; " nor with Hume and his disciples that we 
know them by " association." The inquiry at this 
point is not so much as to the' acceptance of some- 
body's peculiar philosophy of how we know, as it 
is as to whether we have "knowledge" itself. 
Do we know other than through our senses? 

The answer comes that we know ourselves as 
ourselves, distinct from anything else. We know 
that we distinguish something about ourselves as 
distinct, not only from the matter which consti- 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 107 

tutes our environment, but as well from our own 
bodies. The thing seen or heard is not the agent 
which sees or hears. We are able to distinguish 
our bodily organs from certain states or condi- 
tions in which we find ourselves. We resist cer- 
tain bodily desires, as hunger, passion, or sleep. 
The phenomena discerned by the senses are mo- 
tion, color, sound, combustion, breathing, growth, 
height, decomposition, and the like. These have 
relation to space in that they " require extension 
in the substance on which they operate, or in the 
effect or activity itself." There are the phenom- 
ena, such as emotion, will, thought, memory, joy, 
sorrow, purpose and resolve, remorse and repent- 
ance, of which we know just as certainly, but 
which admit of no such relation to space as the 
former, nor do they — even as does the electric 
fluid — require a certain amount of matter to 
be made living in order that they exhibit vital 
activity. What, then, shall we call this power by 
which we know so much, and so much that is 
radically different from that which the senses 
afford? Of course we must give it some appel- 
lation, in order that we may speak of it, and make 
less difficult the use of it. Let it be called soul. 



108 NOBLE LIVING. 

This sounds something conscious of itself. It 
has a means of distinguishing itself from all else 
— from things about it, and from its own states 
and actions, as already declared. Any man who 
will turn his thought inward upon himself and 
pursue subjective study will be convinced that 
he is himself and not another, and that he knows 
immediately and directly his own joy and sorrow, 
his own choices or recollections. There is no 
logic in all the world that can force him to con- 
clude otherwise. 

It is this appeal which is to be made when we 
would answer the initial question, " What is 
man?" No one is prepared to answer judicially 
unless he has passed in review the claims of the 
materialistic naturalist and of the psychologist. 
Whatever claims may be made by the former as 
to the connection of soul with a body, its devel- 
opment with the body, its dependence upon the 
body for knowledge, or its being an ultimate form 
of matter, and therefore that body and soul are 
material organizations, the latter being simply a 
higher function of the former, — all such claims 
are met and their force overwhelmed by the fact 
that the phenomena of the soul are totally unlike 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 109 

the phenomena of the body, — not material nor 
requiring material substance to make known their 
existence ; that the soul distinguishes itself from 
all matter with which it may come in contact, and 
what that distinction inevitably involves; that the 
soul is self-active, impelled to activity by its own 
energy and not of the senses which merely direct, 
but do not cause, that activity. Self-conscious- 
ness asserts that man is an invisible, unweighable, 
untouchable something, which is capable of self- 
direction and self-determination. He inhabits, for 
a season, a tenement constructed of clay, but he 
differs from the tenement in very many regards. 
While the body is the " local habitat" for a " liv- 
ing thing," the range of phenomena of which the 
" living thing " is appreciative and cognizant is so 
unique in every particular that the "living thing " 
must be pronounced as something different from 
the " habitat " — as something different and more 
than the body. And since thought, feeling, 
choice, joy, sorrow, memory, and resolve make up 
much the vaster amount of our life, we are forced 
to regard that " living thing " which knows of 
these as distinctly its own states or activities, as 
the chiefest, grandest, sublimest of all our constit- 



110 NOBLE LIVING. 

uency — as the man himself. In other words, we 
are compelled to the conclusion that man is a 
soul, a spiritual entity. 

Various experiments have been made in order 
to discover the source of being. Whence life ? 
has been an inquiry for ages. Not infrequently 
it has been asserted that the powers resident in 
nature were of sufficient content to account for 
all that we see and know. Though there be myr- 
iad of form, color, and combination, there is an 
efficient cause for all in natural agency. " Mat- 
ter is eternal," " Nature is eternal," has been the 
dictum of some. 

Others have said that there was and is sponta- 
neous generation. Seekers after truth took their 
implements, and proceeded to determine whether 
this were fact. They sought for matter absolutely 
lifeless. That is, they endeavored, by certain pro- 
cesses, to destroy all life that might have existed 
in the matter which they had in hand. And 
having secured what they believed to be such 
material, they watched and waited with excited 
interest. Imagine their concern — perhaps delight 
— as they saw manifestations of vitality in what 
they had previously believed altogether devoid of 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. Ill 

life. Was spontaneous generation a fact ? Had 
they solved one of the mightiest problems of- all 
ages ? These were some of the questions of their 
own minds. But being candid men, who sought 
only for the truth, they reinvestigated ; and, as 
the result of that reinvestigation, they announced, 
not an absolute disbelief in spontaneous genera- 
tion, but rather that, so far as their experiments 
were concerned, that theory of the origin of life 
had not been substantiated. ; 

The law of cause and effect being readily 
accepted, there was no escape from the conse- 
quence that, since generation was not spontaneous, 
and since it was evidently an effect, either it was 
caused by Nature, as has been asserted, or by an 
efficient something outside of Nature. As Profes- 
sor Flint and others assert, " The mind of every 
thoughtful man is forced to one of these two con- 
clusions ; either that the universe is self-existent, 
or that it was created by a self-existent being." 

The truth, therefore, that the soul . of man difr 
fers in its nature from the body and other mate- 
rial things, induces consideration as to what 
produced it, with its peculiarities of nature and 
function. Certainly it could not have come from 



112 NOBLE LIVING. 

something entirely inferior to itself. That which 
is lower cannot of itself and alone produce that 
which is higher. If soul be superior in kind to 
matter, then it cannot be a result of matter. If 
reason and conscience be more in kind than is the 
body, neither is the body nor are the causes which 
may account for the body efficient for their pro- 
duction. The primitive inferior cannot produce 
the primitive superior. Mind having existence in 
man, and being unaccounted for by matter, makes 
logically true and acceptable the alternative that 
the " universe was caused by a self-existent be- 
ing " or soul. 

The soul of man, therefore, is a creation of the 
Over-Soul. It is linked to that Being by bonds 
of nature. Are not those bonds indissoluble? 
Can anything destroy the connection between an 
animal or human progenitor and its offspring? 
How strong soever the desire to sever the union, 
is it possible to accomplish the task ? A parent 
may drive his son from his home, deprive him 
of the felicities of the household, treat him with 
scorn and disinherit him. Is the child not always 
a son to that father? There being no denial in 
such instances, surely there can be none as 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 113 

regards the human soul and the Soul which has 
produced it. 

As to the character of the Creator, men long 
wondered and studiously meditated. Was he 
bad or was he good ? Thousands of years human- 
ity waited and watched, hoping to determine. 
But it was not until the " Light of the World " 
shone forth that men were able to discern clearly. 
Then they learned, through simple yet profound 
teaching, that God always has been, and forever 
will be, good. The disclosure of this fact as a 
reality, undying and revivifying, was both mar- 
vellous and inspiring. It lent not only grandeur 
to the course of history, but sublimity to the 
human soul. 

A Being who was good — eternally and abso- 
lutely good — could produce nothing bad or 
wrong. Especially would it be contrary to the 
nature of things for such a Soul to make a soul 
altogether and in every particular " inclined to all 
evil." The resultant soul must partake of the 
characteristics and unique qualities of its Pro- 
ducer. The latter being good, the former must 
be. At least the former must have decided latent 
tendency to that which is good and pure. And, 



114 NOBLE LIVING. 

inasmuch as the soul is made " in the image " of 
its Creator, — made a soul having judgment and 
moral discernment, — we must think of it as pos- 
sessing potential goodness to a degree sufficient 
to control and dominate it. 

What shall make that goodness active? How 
shall it overcome the contemporaneous vicious 
tendencies of human nature ? For nobody can 
deny that these exist. With freedom to choose, 
can it be that a soul with strong propensities to 
unholiness will be directed to holiness ? Will not 
such direction destroy the soul's freedom ? Can 
the good be made the dominant quality of the life 
of the individual and he remain within the circle 
of his liberty? The reply must always be that, 
since the soul is a creation and offspring of God, 
such results must ensue. Else there is an ulcer 
in the moral universe, and God's goodness meets 
with ignominious defeat in its transmission and 

o 

operations. 

The apprehension of the method by which souls 
are transformed may be clearer and more distinct 
if we investigate some of the things with which 
we are tolerably familiar. 

Imagine that we are at the beginning of spring. 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 115 

For four long months there has been a chill in the 
atmosphere, and the leaves have blown about the 
streets. There have been storms of sleet and 
snow. Animals have hibernated, and man has 
partially secluded himself that the winter frosts 
might not injure him. The invalid, the mother 
with a babe in her arms, the aged taking their 
last lingering steps on earth, have found it a pe- 
riod of undesired imprisonment, of increased care, 
and of decided deprivation. At last the spring- 
time, with its vigorous throb of energy, has come. 
On every side are manifestations of renewal. The 
grass that has lain brown so long is being dotted 
with green, i Blades here and there, growing in 
size, and increasing in number, wrap, at length, 
the whole earth in a mantle of beauty. The birds 
are returning. On the recurring mornings we 
hear their glad voices.' How sweet their songs! 
The sap in the trees mounts aloft, and from out 
the branches come the twigs and the leaves. On 
every bush by the roadside and in the field, we 
see the buds which prophesy blossoms and fruit. 
A wonderful transformation has been wrought. 
How? Ah! that is the secret. Maybe we shall 
learn as the season progresses. 



116 NOBLE LIVING. 

We watch the development and scrutinize the 
unfolding, until at length the autumn comes. A 
beautiful night succeeds a beautiful day. No 
clouds shut out the light of heaven as its rays 
sparkle and stream through the myriad windows 
of the firmament. King Frost sallies forth from 
the North with his chariot and fiery steeds. Trav- 
elling until the dawn of day, he touches the plants 
and growing vines with his icy fingers. The 
leaves are seared. The grass is browned. There 
are drooping heads all about us. Ripened grain 
and fruit are made ready for the garner. When 
several nights like this have passed, we climb to 
some hill-top and cast our eye over the fields and 
mountain-side. What a view ! Did ever one 
behold such coloring ! Beautiful reds and } r el- 
lows ! What a picture ! Where can we secure 
like tints ! — are the exclamations. It is won- 
derful and it is fascinating. No lover of nature 
can look about him in the autumn-time and not 
be charmed and inspired. Marvellous, marvel- 
lous is the task accomplished. How has it been, 
wrought? we ask. But still that remains a 
secret. 

Were we to stand beside some great cathedral 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 117 

during its construction, we should perceive the 
blocks of stone, the heavy timbers, and all the 
materials requisite to the completion of the pile. 
We should also see the men employed, their tools 
and machinery. 

Were we to enter the machine-shop, we might 
look upon a locomotive. It stands before us, 
seemingly conscious of its might and power. 
Looking at it carefully, we detect many dissimilar 
parts, yet each adapted to a specific purpose. As 
a whole, it is to draw a train freighted with 
humanity. We are told its capacity, and the tale 
is verified by a test. After riding seventy-five or 
eighty miles an hour, we inquire as to the method 
of its construction. We are shown men, lathes, 
wrenches, hammers, and a hundred other things, 
which in their combined capacity have made the 
huge machine possible. 

Were we to enter a studio and watch the sculp- 
tor at his work, we should see his block of mar- 
ble or granite ; we should see his model and its 
marked measurings ; we should see him manip- 
ulate his sharpened steel ; and we should behold 
the figure gradually emerge, well-proportioned, 
from the rough-hewn stone. 



118 NOBLE LIVING. 

In all these things we detect not only results, 
but, as well, the m means and method whereby the 
results are achieved. If it be desirable, we can 
calculate the force of muscle and of heat and 
other elementary energies expended in producing 
these results. There is very little of anything 
that is beyond the ken and measurement of the 
expert and specialist in any of these departments 
of man's activity. 

It is not so in the changes from winter to 
spring, nor from summer to autumn. We can 
but note the alterations of all the things round 
about us. What of the agency producing those 
changes? Can we see it? Can we touch it? 
Can we hear it? Can Ave measure it? Indeed, 
can we detect it, as it works, by any sense, or by 
anything similar to sense? If not, to what con- 
clusion must we come? Surely we are justified, 
alike by observation, experience, history, and phi- 
losophy, in asserting that all the transformations 
wrought in the outer world are wrought by an 
invisible power. The elements are all within an 
Unseen Hand, and they are fashioned as a potter 
fashions the clay. Some power other than that 
resident within moulds them. 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 119 

If, then, external and material substances may 
be affected from without themselves, it would not 
be strange to conceive of a human soul being af- 
fected by powers or influences external to itself. 

The soul is a creation, with the possibilities of 
both evil and good. Every soul is such. In 
some the former dominates ; in others, the latter. 
In the majority, evil seems to be uppermost. If 
there could be a spiritual affecting of the soul 
whereby the good would march forth from the 
seclusion of potentiality, and become the active 
and commanding agent in the arena of individual 
life, the soul would be reborn, renewed, and 
would, gradually, become holy. Is such an op- 
eration possible ? 

We need to keep constantly in mind that man 
is an invisible and spiritual being, and that his 
Creator is likewise an invisible spiritual Being. 
If, then, the forces and agents which operate so 
effectually between material substances for their 
alteration and improvement are unseen, it cannot 
possibly be expected that the forces and agents 
which operate between two spiritual beings will 
be seen. Indeed, there is far more profound 
reason for the latter to be regarded as invisible 



120 NOBLE LIVING. 

than for the former. And not only so. If man 
and God be spiritual, the agency by which man 
is to know God, and, indeed, his fellow-men, is — 
must be — spiritual. Man, therefore, is to be af- 
fected by unseen spiritual influences, and by these 
is to be rearranged or polarized, morally and 
spiritually. 

Is there doubt as to the existence of such 
agencies ? It seems hardly possible for scepticism 
in this regard. Make inquiry -of a friend as to 
which had the greater effect upon him, the pre- 
cepts and instruction of his mother, or her quiet, 
gentle, trustful, serene, and loving life. If a boy 
could have lived twenty years in the presence of 
George Washington, would it not have produced 
a result in the quality of his character, even 
though Washington had never given him moral 
instruction ? On the other hand, would not the 
mere companionship of Nero, Louis XIV., or 
Henry VIII. have corrupted the boy and made 
him licentious and dissolute ? A father may tell 
his son not to use tobacco nor to be profane ; but 
if he is himself addicted to both, what of his 
boy? Do not our associates affect us for evil 
or for good ? I do not seek to undervalue teach- 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 121 

ing. I only desire the recognition of another and 
more subtile agency at work in the world. 

What is that agency ? It has never be m seen, 
never been touched, never been weighed. To the 
performance of its task there has been no appare:i1 
gathering of forces. Every stage of the pro; 
dure has been noiseless and without appearance.,. 
Man's influence over man is the influence of an 
invisible soul over an invisible soul, — an influ- 
ence in itself as invisible as its source and its 
recipient. It is a spiritual influence. 

But the human, as already indicated, has unique 
relationships to the Divine, the created to the 
Creator. Shall it be asserted that the realm of 
spiritual influence is limited to that of the lower 
world and human intercourse ? If one man may 
influence the soul of another man, may we not 
believe that there are also soul or spiritual influ- 
ences of a higher grade ? 

It is most reasonable to believe in an immanent 
God. The Divine is not only above the world 
and distinct from the world, bat he is in the 
world. Law has not been ordained and left to 
self-execution. God is operating. The universe 
is not a vast machine once set in motion by the 



122 NOBLE LIVING. 

Unseen, who, having started it, then retired. It 
is the Unseen which supplies the motive power, 
and forces the constant movement. 

If, then, God be in the world, man must be 
subject to the influence of that Presence. If the 
shrubs and rocks, the sea and the sky, respond 
to His demands and commands, much more must 
man. As a spiritual being he ought, in the 
nature of the case, to be more sensitive to the 
presence of the Father-Spirit than is any non- 
spiritual substance. To deny that such sensitive- 
ness is possible would be to assert that spirit is 
utterly unresponsive to spirit. Such an assertion 
is proven absolutely untrue. If we observe the 
transformation of character all about us, if we 
believe in what men tell us, and if we accept 
the verdict of our own experience, we must con- 
clude that the spirit of God affects the spirit of 
man to the enlargement, unfolding, edification, 
and redemption of the latter. 

Here is the very heart-centre of human exist- 
ence. Man, as the kin of God, is to be influ- 
enced, upbuilded, and moulded by him. "No 
man hath seen God at any time " is as true to- 
day as ever. But that is not saying that no man 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 123 

hath felt God at any time. To affirm the 
latter would be a falsehood. Jesus said, " This 
is eternal life, that men might know thee the 
only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
sent." If men are to have that life, then there 
must be some sort of knowledge of God. 

To what sort of knowledge is it probable Jesus 
referred ? If a man studies the firmament with 
the telescope, or the insect-world with the micro- 
scope, or studies any other physical phenomena, 
will he know God? He may, and he may not. 
Natural scientists disagree in their conclusions as 
to the existence of a Creator. Does anybody 
claim that Jesus was a "scientist" or a man 
" learned in the schools " ? And will not all 
claim that he, of all who ever walked the earth, 
had in him the " eternal life " ? If so, he must 
have known God. That makes it evident that 
one devoid of technical education, one who is 
" unlettered and unlearned," may " know God," 
and thereby have " life." 

But how? By becoming conscious of the pres- 
ence of the Invisible. If some metaphysicians 
deny that such consciousness is possible, let no 
one be dismayed. There are scores upon scores 



124 NOBLE LIVING. 

of individuals who will persistently assert that 
they know God directly and immediately, with- 
out an intervening agency. They will assert that 
they feel God within themselves when they place 
themselves in proper spiritual attitude. And 
we may judge from the course of many lives — 
some transformed from extreme sinfulness, and 
others saved from the more ordinary erring of 
men — that what is so confidently asserted is true. 
For many such there are who live the Christ-like, 
or the " eternal " life. 

Man, therefore, may be moulded by this Invisible 
Being. While it is true that we are affected more 
or less by influences of which we are not conscious, 
it is likewise true that we are affected most truly 
by influences of which we are conscious. There 
are certain conditions under which the Invisible 
may work his most complete work in us. To in- 
tentionally close the way of access to the soul, and 
to persistently keep it closed, will make growth 
in divineness of character exceedingly slow, if in- 
deed not utterly impossible. Simply to be passive, 
and allow the sunlight of heaven to shine upon 
the soul, will produce some growth, inevitably; 
though it will be disheartening and discouraging. 



MOULDED BY THE INVISIBLE. 125 

But to be open-souled and eager for assistance 
to holiness, to be desirous of employing every 
instrumentality which will promote purity and 
godliness, that is the condition through which 
heavenliness of life increases with greatest rapid- 
ity, and in which moral strength and spiritual 
beauty become most pronounced, invincible, and 
sublime. 

Phillips Brooks says : — 

" Let the frost smite your cheek, let the rain beat into 
your face, let the wind blow upon your back, and then you 
know by personal experience what you had known by your 
observation before. I say that only when a man puts him- 
self where he can feel the power of the Christ, where it is 
possible for him, if there be a Christ, if Christ be all that 
the Christian religion claims that he is, only when a man 
puts himself where he needs and must have and must cer- 
tainly feel that Christ, if there be a Christ, only then has 
he a right to disbelieve if the Christ be not there, only then 
has he a right to believe if the Christ find him there." 

To be moulded by the Invisible is the opportu- 
nity of opportunities. In a world so full of mar- 
vels and mystery, with a nature so charged with 
potentiality, it is our privilege to become right- 
eous and holy. What a privilege that is ! It 
means that we are to have our thought so clarified 



126 NOBLE LIVING. 

as to perceive basal truths, and as to fail not to 
permit them to lead us to their legitimate results. 
It means that our choices and our conduct will be 
compatible with our conceptions. It means that 
revenge, impulse, passion, and all else of the 
lower and unworthy, will be subjected to that 
which is highest and best. Indeed, to be moulded 
by the Invisible signifies that we shall be growing 
away from all that is evil, and that love (the free, 
voluntary outreaching of our spirits) will become 
the motive in all our considerations, the manifest 
force in all our intercourse, and the quickener of 
all our aspirations. 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 



Charles Rockwell Tenney. 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 



Pkayer is desire consciously depending upon 
God's help for realization of its object. Observe, 
it is desire depending upon God. The sense of 
God, and belief that he is, or may be, propi- 
tious, are essential, are fundamental. So, prop- 
erly speaking, and however God may meet it, 
mere desire is not prayer. Need is not prayer, 
and it is only by a figure of speech that we can 
say that the tree or the flower prays. They have 
their needs, and would die if God did not fill the 
cups which are held up toward heaven on their 
account ; but they are neither conscious of the 
need, nor of the only source of supply, therefore 
they do not pray. So far as we know, or can 
know, only man prays ; and he only as the sense 
of need hath over against it the sense of a Power 
which can, and, if the conditions can be made 
right, which will, serve the need. Already Mont- 
gomery's hymn has been suggested, and the reader 
has said to himself : 

129 



130 NOBLE LIVING. 

"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire, 
Uttered or unexpressed." 

And that were good if we did not stop there. It 
is true that prayer is prayer, whether " uttered or 
unexpressed ; " but it is entirely false to use these 
two lines, as they so often are used, as an answer 
to the question, What is prayer? The author 
would not have had them used in this way. De- 
sire, however sincere, is not prayer ; and we must 
read at least two stanzas of the hymn to find out 
what prayer is. Then we find out that the poet's 
idea was that " the sincere desire," " the burden 
of a sigh," "the falling of a tear," "the upward 
glancing of an eye," become prayer only as the 
sense of God is present, only as they come of con- 
scious dependence upon his help, only 

"When none but God is near." 

To wish or to desire is not to pray. To desire of 
God is to pray. 

But what is the uplift of prayer? Is it when 
one uplifts himself in prayer ? or is it when he is 
uplifted in answer to his prayer ? Why not both ? 
Is it not the first as the necessary condition of the 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYEB. 131 

second? Is it not the second as the only ade- 
quate result and justification of the first? It is 
like this : When we have done the best we could, 
and our desire is still unsatisfied, our own high 
instincts encourage, in great stress constrain, us 
to pray. We turn the pages of the world's his- 
tory, and we find the holiest in all ages praying. 
We open the pages of inspiration, and, in no 
uncertain terms, find ourselves bidden to pray. 
Now, since from its very nature prayer cannot 
be merely for the sake of praying, do not these 
voices utter the one promise, " Ask, and ye shall 
receive " ? Do they not emphasize the one great 
assurance that God will heed our call, and come 
to our need? Do they not distinctly commend 
prayer, not as a crutch for our incompetency, but 
as the lever for our strength — the lever with 
which we may lift from our path the largest diffi- 
culties, and pry open the great doors of the 
kingdom? Manifestly great things are condi- 
tioned upon prayer, and he doeth well who prays. 
The uplift of prayer, then, shall, must, mean 
first the voluntary uplift upon which the extra 
or super-voluntary depends. 

But then it must mean also this extra-voluntary 



132 NOBLE LIVING. 

uplift, for it is this which the voluntary hath con- 
templated, and in which it finds its justification. 
Some say, " Pray, for so you will come to a better 
understanding of your needs ; " or, " Pray, for 
prayer is a good spiritual exercise, and will gener- 
ate spiritual warmth and magnetism." Now, it 
is doubtless true that real prayer helps by indi- 
rection and reaction ; but prayer that is made 
merely for the incidental results is not real, and 
must be so conscious of the insincerity involved 
that it cannot long persist. He who bids us pray 
merely that we may help ourselves is trifling with 
us. The only justification of prayer to God is 
that God hears and answers it ; and this, God's 
answer, is the ultimate and divine uplift which 
comes of prayer, and which our subject contem- 
plates. 

We proceed, then, to think upon the uplift of 
prayer, giving our attention, first, to the volun- 
tary uplift, or the uplift involved in the act of 
praying ; and, second, to the extra-voluntary up- 
lift, or the uplift which comes as the answer to 
prayer. 

And first the voluntary uplift. This, or the 
beginning of it, is when we determine to pray. 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 133 

And at the beginning the uplift may be from a 
very low level ; for we are not praying from the 
heights, but towards them ; not at the finish, but 
at the start. There will be a prayer appropriate 
for the finish and the heights, a prayer breaking 
into praise and thanksgiving ; but the uplift of 
prayer does not begin there. Indeed, it begins 
when we are farthest from all that, when we are 
most oppressed by sense of sinfulness, littleness, 
need. Then, when the sense of God, never quite 
absent from any soul, presses itself upon us as 
our only hope ; then, when some voice, within or 
without, says, " Ask, and ye shall receive : " then, 
when we first say, I will " ask of God, who giveth 
to all men liberally and upbraideth not," — then 
is the beginning of prayer and the uplift of prayer. 
" But," some one will say, " the initiative is not 
in the will, for " it is God who worketh in you 
both to will and to do of his good pleasure.'' 
True ; but, after all, practically, the initiative is 
with you, for the working of God within availeth 
not until you engage yourself to " work out your 
own salvation with anxiety and self-distrust." 
" The intercession of the Spirit " is prevented 
until you are ready to say, " God help me." 



134 NOBLE LIVING. 

And it is good to see that the first thing is the 
will to pray, for many think they must wait until 
they " feel like it." And by this they do not 
mean that they must wait for a sense of need and 
an impulse to go to God With that need ; but 
they think that prayer cometh properly only out 
of some rapture, some ecstasy of the soul. But 
now we have learned that we are not to wait to 
"feel like it," but are resolutely, earnestly, to do 
it. If the rapture comes afterwards and inciden- 
tally, well and good ; but the initial and essential 
thing is the will to pray. Some one exclaims, 
"What, pray when your hearts are cold?" And 
some one else aptly replies, " Yes, by all means ; 
suppose your hands are cold, do you wait for 
them to become warm before going to the fire ? " 
It is not the experience and then the prayer, but 
the prayer that we may have the experience. So 
the purpose is the beginning of the uplift. 

But after one hath purposed to pray, he pray- 
eth, and this raiseth him higher. He hath lifted 
his eyes unto the hills, now he climbeth them. 
He hath said, I will seek my Father, and now he 
seeketh him. Is it not an uplift when a man 
wrests his attention from the darkness, and per- 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 135 

sistently fixes it upon the light ; when he ceases 
looking into the muddy pools of earth, perhaps 
seeing nothing better than his own reflection in 
them, and looks upon the pure heavens, and upon 
him who is enthroned over all? Is it not an up- 
lift when, even for a little, a man ceases to talk 
with those who are beneath, that he may talk 
with him who is above ? Verily his " conversa- 
tion is in heaven," and " conversation " in heaven 
is sure ultimately to be translated into "citi- 
zenship " in heaven. For as one perseveres in 
prayer, the will to pray grows stronger, and the 
way to pray grows clearer; the hold upon him 
of the forces which would keep him down be- 
comes weaker, and the face of the Eternal, vaguely 
sought and seen at the beginning, becomes more 
distinct. Yes, these results follow if one perse- 
veres in prayer. He may get none of the specific 
things for which he asks ; but he certainly will 
get a better acquaintance with him before whom 
he hath appeared, and a better understanding of 
his will. And there can be no doubt but his own 
desires will be greatly qualified, as he holds them 
up in the light, and tells them over to the pure 
One. There can be no doubt but one who prays 



136 NOBLE LIVING. 

learns to desire fewer and better things. Indeed, 
as in this light he contemplates the foolishness 
of much that he hath wished, and the wisdom of 
him to whom he hath come, it is almost sure that 
he will rise more and more toward the spiritual 
height of him who subjected his own desires, and 
said, under the stress and agony of the strongest 
of them, only this : " If it be possible . . . never- 
theless not my will, but thine, be done." And all 
this uplift of purpose, of mind, of heart, of habit, 
you see is not of the answer to prayer, but of the 
praying. 

And the uplift involved in praying is surer be- 
cause he who perseveres will avail himself of all 
favorable conditions and all helps to it. Gener- 
ally speaking, it is only he in whom, consciously 
or unconsciously, scorn of the fact is growing, who 
scorns the forms of prayer. The genuinely prayer- 
ful will by no means cease praying because there 
is no prescribed form which serveth the occasion, 
or because some customary attitude is inconven- 
ient. If he has not learned a prayer which fitteth 
the need, he will make one ; and if it is not con- 
venient to stand or kneel, he will pray sitting or 
walking or driving; and if he may not bow his 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 137 

head and close his eyes, yet will he pray. But let 
him question if his prayerfulness is not waning 
who never feels an impulse to shut his eyes upon 
every earthly thing, and bow down, nay, prostrate 
himself, before the Majesty on high. But the 
point is, he who really prays will help himself by 
every suggestive form and attitude ; and if his lips 
do not teach his knees, his knees will remind his 
lips, to pray. And he will help himself by seeking 
such companionships as are helpful, remembering 
the great promise which hinges upon the consent 
of any two as to what they shall ask, or which is 
given to two or three gathered together in the 
name of the Good. And while he prayeth much 
in company, that the faith and fervor of others may 
help his own, he will prize much more the privi- 
lege of solitude, and, with Jesus, will frequently 
go apart to pray, where being still will help him 
to know God, and where nothing shall disturb the 
glad outpouring of his heart. And while every 
place, and all the ways in which he walks, and 
all occasions, are hallowed with the prayers he 
breathes, it is not because he is indifferent to 
special places and appointed times. The man of 
prayer is ever saying, — 



138 NOBLE LIVING. 

" How amiable are thy tabernacles, 
O Lord of hosts ! 

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth 
for the courts of the Lord !" 

and ever singing, — 

"Sweet hour of prayer ! sweet hour of prayer!" 

The place and the time are not unimportant to 
him. He helpeth the uplift of his soul by all that 
can be found in hallowed associations and habits 
of devotion. 

And yet otherwise does praying lift him. Per- 
sisted in, it shames him out of conduct that is 
incongruous, and stimulates him to that which 
is harmonious, consistent. Real prayer will not 
compound with impurity, falsehood, hate, idle- 
ness, cowardice, self-indulgence, pride, or any such 
thing. It is as intolerant of all these as water is 
of oil. If a man will persist in prayer, will keep 
its pure flood flowing from his life, it will float all 
these evils out, and cast them up to be consumed. 
But if, on the other hand, he will persist in these, 
or any of them, they will effectually dam the cur- 
rent Godward of all aspiration and desire, and he 
will have to say with the wicked king : — 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 139 

" Pray can I not, 
Though inclination be as sharp as will ; 
My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent; 
And like a man to double business bound, 
I stand in pause where I shall first begin, 
And both neglect." 

There are those who " for a pretence make long 
prayers.'' Their prayers are not prayers, but 
pretences. All sorts of wickedness are consis- 
tent with such hypocrisy But real prayer, the 
voluntary uplift of the soul into the presence of 
the Pure, demands of the soul that it become 
pure. 

And it requires not only that the soul rid itself 
of impurity, but that it engage itself in all good 
offices and faithful work. As illustrating, per- 
haps covering, the various positive virtues, real 
prayer commits one to industry and charity. It 
commits him to industry ; and the challenge of the 
apostle is always in order, " Show me thy faith 
without thy works, and I will show thee my faith 
by my works." Unless there is nothing else that 
he can do, he who lies upon his back and longs 
for things, even though he holds up his idle hands 
towards God for them, has not yet learned how to 
pray. Real prayer does not say to enterprise, 



140 NOBLE LIVING. 

Take in your sails ; wrap yourself in your ham- 
mock ; your toils are past. It says rather, Call 
all hands upon deck ; to the last shred spread 
forth your sails ; do your utmost ; trust God for 
the rest. Real prayer is not an extinguisher upon 
zeal, but a breath fanning it to brighter use. 
Indeed, the truer rendering of St. James v. 16 
shows it a form of industry. It is "in its work- 
ing " that it avails. And its working is not 
always in words. It works in deeds as well, and, 
with the reverent man, planting and digging and 
casting his nets are but forms of praying. For 
see, there is no force in the planting to make the 
harvest, or in the digging to produce the gold, or 
in the casting of the nets to create the fish. It 
is God who " giveth the increase." The prayer- 
ful man knoweth this ; and his labors become 
prayers, and he does not forget to thank God for 
the results. Bayard Taylor says, " Labor, you 
know, is prayer." Yes, if it be reverent labor, 
labor depending upon God. But he who works, 
cursing the necessity that he must work, is not 
praying. Emerson says, " The prayer of the far- 
mer kneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of 
the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, are 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 141 

true prayers." They are if they are, not other- 
wise. If they are an expression of desire con- 
sciously depending upon God for the realization of 
its object, then are they prayers. But how is it 
when the spirit of the farmer and rower are full 
of blasphemy, and when they are thinking of no 
good thing toward God or any one? All prayer 
works, but, alas, all work does not pray. But the 
point is, prayer raises the soul to higher levels 
because it commits to consistent endeavors. And, 
looking back through the centuries, you will find 
that this is so — that those who have prayed best 
have worked best, and that the great endeavors 
which have transformed the world have had be- 
ginning in the garden, on the mountain, in the 
prayer-house, in the closet, where men have re- 
ceived their patterns and inspirations from Him 
who " worketh hitherto " and evermore. 

But this is more evidently true because true 
prayer binds to charity as well as industry. It is 
impossible that one should come into such con- 
scious dependence upon the love of God as is 
implied by the fact that he prays without at once 
coming into a state of mind, gentle, favorable, 
propitious, toward any who may in any way be 



142 NOBLE LIVING. 

served by him. He may come to the altar with 
his offering and his petition, but then will he be 
moved to leave his gift before the altar that he 
may ask pardon, and make reparation to his 
brother whom he hath wronged; after that, he 
will come and offer his gift. If it be real, 
prayer exacts submission to, compliance with, im- 
itation of, that Love which it supplicates. 

" We do pray for mercy, 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy." 

Prayer not only works, but loves. This is the 
meaning, no doubt, of Coleridge's couplet, — 

" He prayeth best who loveth best, 
All things, both great and small." 

And this may be a test of our prayers; for if 
they do not result in making us more loving, we 
have not yet learned how to pray. 

And this is a part — does it not appear so ? — 
of the voluntary uplift of prayer, a part of the 
uplift involved in the act of praying. So much 
hath he who hath willed to pray done for him- 
self. By use of prayer he hath kindled desire 
for every form of good. It was his to take the 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 143 

initiative ; and this that we have seen, and more 
for which this stands, was involved in it. The 
uplift of prayer is first a voluntary uplift. 

First, but not chiefly. The voluntary is in 
order to the extra- or super-voluntary ; the pray- 
ing is for the sake of the answer to prayer ; and 
when one hath thus uplifted himself he expects 
God will uplift him, bearing him to heights which, 
unaided, he cannot hope to reach. And it is the 
very essence of religion, of Christianity, at least, 
to affirm that God will do this very thing, that 
he hears and answers prayer; indeed, that he 
reserves some of his best gifts, perhaps some of 
the best of every gift, until our need and our 
sense of dependence upon him become distinct 
and urgent enough to lead us humbly and ear- 
nestly to ask him for them. Then he gives the 
gift, and better gifts. And this is the uplift of 
prayer. 

And, in this second part, it begins when God 
takes the prayer, and sets it among the reasons 
upon which his action is to depend. The man 
pursued by urgent need and by the sense of God 
cannot help praying ; how does his soul take cour- 
age when he knows that God, filled with the love 



144 NOBLE LIVING. 

of his child, can no more help hearing. Your 
request is heard and recorded in heaven, and hath 
weight there. The specific thing may or may 
not he granted, hut it will be more likely to he 
granted because you have prayed. As Dr. Clarke 
has said : " Just as, when a man ploughs the 
ground and plants his seed, he co-operates with 
divine laws, the natural result of which is a har- 
vest ; so, when a man prays for anything he really 
wants, and while he prays endeavors to abide in 
the spirit of Christ and pray out of that, he co- 
operates with other divine laws, the natural result 
of which is the receiving what he asks. Not 
always, not always in either case. The man may 
plough and sow, and no crop come ; still there 
is a tendency in ploughing and sowing to make 
the crop come. A man may pray for his sick 
child's recovery, and the child die nevertheless. 
But there was a tendency in his prayer to save 
his child's life." So your prayer is heard in 
heaven. God hath received it. In this are not 
both it and you lifted up? And, unless the ob- 
jections are insuperable, so that to answer with 
the thing you ask would not be to bestow the 
blessing you desire, God answers your prayer — 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 145 

is not this to be exalted? In the fact that God 
attends and answers is there uplift in prayer. 

How must Abraham have rejoiced in it when 
he knew himself recognized of God as he prayed 
before him ! So high does he appear in view 
of all this that we call him the " Friend of 
God." And Ishmael is but a little boy, and 
more despised because he is the son of the hand- 
maid ; yet can he cry so as to be heard on high ; 
and the messenger saith to Hagar, his mother, 
" Fear not, for God hath heard the voice of the 
lad where he is." And Jacob wrestles in prayer, 
and proves what force is in it, inasmuch as the an- 
swer is given only to his perseverance ; and he is 
named Israel because, as a prince, hath he power 
with God and with men, and hath prevailed. 
And to Joseph in Egypt were secrets shown when 
he prayed, and to Daniel in Babylon, and to 
David and the prophets. And in the New Tes- 
tament how strongly hath God bound himself to 
heed the requests of his children ! In the prom- 
ises he hath opened a way for the poorest of us 
to stand beside him, that we may tell him our 
reasons, and make known our requests. How is 
the promise iterated and emphasized : " Ask, 



146 NOBLE LIVING. 

and it shall be given you ; seek, and ye shall 
find ; knock, and it shall be opened unto you : 
for everyone that asketh receiveth ; and he that 
seeketh findeth ; and to him who knocketh it shall 
be opened." " And all things whatsoever ye 
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 
" And whatsoever ye shall ask in ray name, 
that will I do, that the Father may be glorified 
in the Son." " If ye abide in me, and my 
words abide in you, ask whatsoever ye will, and 
it shall be done unto you." " Verily, verily, 
I say unto you, if ye shall ask anything of the 
Father, he will give it you in my name. Hitherto 
ye have asked nothing in my name : ask and ye 
shall receive, that your joy may be fulfilled." 
And these promises are multiplied, and the exhor- 
tations to prayerfulness are upon almost every 
page of the New Testament. And, as of old 
the force which is in prayer had been revealed to 
Jacob's persistency, so in the teachings of Jesus 
is it revealed when, in the parables of the friend 
at midnight, and the importunate widow, he 
shows that " men ought always to pray and not 
to faint ; " the reason and encouragement being 
that, if prayer hath force to constrain unwilling- 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 147 

ness, it must be of far greater force with him 
whose willingness hath ordained it, and only waits 
that it be made with due earnestness and faith. 
But its force is even more impressively taught 
by the conduct of Jesus. His office was to show 
us what God is like, and what is his disposition 
toward his children. And how accessible he 
was ! Was any need which came to him unan- 
swered ? This means that no need shall be 
brought to God which shall not in some way, in 
the best way, be answered. A leper hails him 
and says, " Thou canst make me clean." He 
doth not withdraw from, but compassionately 
touches him, answering his prayer. The para- 
lytic is brought, and the divine discourse is inter- 
rupted as his friends illustrate the truth that real 
prayer works as well as prays. Jesus is not 
offended, but bids the paralytic go home, bearing 
his bed. A woman in the throng would secretly 
avail herself of the health which is in him. This, 
however, she could not do ; nevertheless, because 
her touch was genuine, the gift she sought was 
given. A man prayeth for his son, another for 
his servant, another for his daughter. These 
prayers for others are allowed, and the son and 



148 NOBLE LIVING. 

servant, though far away, are cured ; and the lit- 
tle daughter, dead when he cometh to the place, 
is raised to life again. And then, as now, there 
were those who thought that prayer was (at least 
sometimes) an impertinence. When the Ca- 
naanite woman importuned for the deliverance of 
her daughter from an unclean spirit, and when 
the blind men, at the gates of Jericho, clamored 
for the restoration of their sight, these would have 
silenced and sent them away. But he was not 
offended by their earnestness ; he gave himself 
to their need. And he doth not wait that men 
be worthy to be answered. Did he, how hopeless 
it were to pray ! Ten lepers come, and, though 
only one hath grace enough to return him thanks, 
all are cleansed. So doth it appear that, apart 
from everything beside, even apart from virtue, 
prayer hath force, a force its own. And by these 
examples does Jesus impress the conviction that 
God, whom he represents, is not far off, inacces- 
sible, but present, ready to hear, easy to be en- 
treated. So does he show us, by his acts, how 
God honors prayer by making his omnipotence 
to flow through the gates it opens. The real 
uplift of prayer is in this, that God answers it, 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 149 

that " Good prayers never come weeping home." 
And what an uplift this is ! In the darkness one 
has been reaching up and feeling after God ; 
what joy to find the divine hand reaching down 
for him ! He holds upon that hand, grasping it 
firmly lest he lose it ; what joy to feel its answer- 
ing pressure, as if it would not be lost ! 

And this answer to prayer men have known, 
not in the Bible times alone, but in all the years. 
The testimony of Sir Fowell Buxton, quoted by 
Professor Phelps, could be repeated by multi- 
tudes. He says, " When I am out of heart I 
follow David's example, and fly for refuge to 
prayer. ... I am bound to acknowledge that 
I have always found that my prayers have been 
heard and answered. ... I understand literally 
the injunction : <• In everything make your re- 
quests known to God ; ' and I cannot but notice 
how amply these prayers have been met." Again, 
he writes to his daughter concerning a division 
in the House of Commons in the conflict for 
West Indian emancipation : " What led to that 
division? If ever there was a subject which oc- 
cupied our prayers, it was this. Do you remem- 
ber how we desired that God would give me his 



150 NOBLE LIVING. 

spirit in that emergency ; how we quoted the 
promise, ' He that lacketh wisdom, let him ask 
it of the Lord, and it shall be given him ; ' and 
how I kept open that passage in the Old Testa- 
ment, in which it is said, 'We have no might 
against this great company that cometh against 
us, neither know we what to do, but our eyes 
are upon thee ' — the Spirit of the Lord reply- 
ing, c Be not afraid nor dismayed by reason of 
this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, 
but God's' ? If you want to see the passage, open 
my Bible ; it will turn of itself to the place. I 
sincerely believe that prayer was the cause of 
that division ; and I am confirmed in this by 
knowing that we by no means calculated on the 
effect." Testimonies, instances, like this, could 
be multiplied indefinitely. They mean that to- 
day God hears and answers prayer — that Jesus 
made visible the attention with which God al- 
ways honors it. If it is possible, he answers it 
in kind ; but, if the prayer is real, he always 
answers in some kind. Says an old English di- 
vine, " I am sure I shall receive either what I 
ask or what I should ask." But the point is, 
God hears thee, and thy prayer hath a tendency 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 151 

to bring the specific thing it seeks. And this is 
the uplift of prayer. 

But not this alone. God gives the gift, and 
better gifts. He pours his omnipotence through 
the gates which prayer opens, but not merely 
upon the wheels which prayer hath set for it. 
The flood of good is sure to overflow all bounds, 
and variously bless the life. And here the two 
parts of our discourse overlap each other and be- 
come confused. We have said that the volun- 
tary uplift, the act of praying, strengthens the 
will and makes clearer the way to pray, that, as 
one perseveres, desire is purified, the hold of the 
forces that keep down becomes weaker, and the 
soul is more and more committed to all that is 
good. And this must be true. These are nat- 
ural results. But when one truly prays are they 
wholly left to nature? Not for a moment. In- 
deed, the answer anticipates, crowds upon, the 
asking, inasmuch as "it is God who worketh 
within you both to will and to do of his good 
pleasure," inasmuch as it is God, who, unrecog- 
nized, prompts all pure desire. And the desire 
becomes purified as it is lifted up to the pure 
One, does it? That surely is natural and reason- 



152 NOBLE LIVING. 

able. But not so alone is it purified ; for, while 
thou pray est, God pours his desire for thee into 
thy bosom that it may become thine ; and so the 
Spirit maketh intercession for thee. This it is 
which brings thee surely to that spiritual uplift 
of the Master, toward which thine own volition 
to pray tendeth, in which he said, " Not my will, 
but thine, be done." And, as thou prayest, the 
will to pray grows stronger, does it? Yes, nat- 
urally, as when one exercises any power it grows 
stronger by the exercise. But is there not an 
experience to the devout beyond this ? Early 
hath he not felt another Will beneath his own, 
and lifting him to heights he could not hope to 
reach alone ? 

" A mighty wind of nobler will 
Sends through his soul its quickening thrill ; 
No more a creature of the clod, 
He knows himself a child of God." 

And is conscience quickened? As we have seen, 
so must it be with one who prays. But not alone 
because he prays ; more because God answers him. 
He, with clear vision, sees and hates the evil 
things that crawl and hide within ; but it is so 
because the flood of grace, sweeping to the point 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 153 

to which his prayers have bidden it, has washed 
his vision clear that he may see ; or it is so be- 
cause the light, invoked for special use, has lighted 
all the corners and closets of his room. And 
is ambition stirred so thou wouldst work as well 
as pray, proving thy piety by thine industry? 
It is God giving himself to the regeneration of 
his world, and the building of his kingdom 
through thee. And doth thy spirit grow in love 
toward everything? In thy sphere dost thou feel 
thyself bound to imitate his mercy? Ah, it is 
hot merely because thou seest how good he is, 
but because when thou openest the door in prayer 
his love comes into thy heart, to be, if thou wilt 
not crush it, the life and love of your love ever- 
more. So doth God give, not sparingly, carefully 
fitting his answers to our petitions, but "abun- 
dantly, above all that we ask or think." 

Nor is this all. The uplift of prayer finally 
bringeth one to transcendent vision and experi- 
ence. We recall Moses, when he came to the 
back of the desert, to the mountain of God, even 
to Horeb. We remember how the vision he 
sought transcended his expectation, how he was 
overwhelmed by the revelation of the Eternal, so 



154 NOBLE LIVING. 

that he hid his face, being afraid to look on God. 
We remember how God disclosed his presence and 
power when Elijah prayed, and the place was 
wrapped about with fire, which consumed " the 
burnt sacrifice, and the wood, and the stones, and 
the dust," and licked up the water that was in 
the trenches about the altar ; " and all the peo- 
ple saw it, and fell on their faces, and said, The 
Lord he is God, the Lord he is God." We re- 
member Paul, the man of prayer, and what trans- 
cendent vision came to him when he was lifted 
up " to the third heaven," when he was " caught 
up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, 
which it is not lawful for a man to utter." We 
remember St. John, a prisoner upon the island of 
Patmos. We remember the sea beating mono- 
tonously about him, making visible and audible 
his loneliness. We remember him u in the Spirit 
on the Lord's day," and how, in the exaltation of 
that hour, there was to him "no more sea." We 
remember that the throne-room of the universe 
was open to his vision, and that he was lifted to 
the presence of him that sitteth upon the throne, 
and to the presence of the Lamb. And the vision 
opened upon the future, and upon " a new heaven 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 155 

and a new earth," when "the tabernacle of God 
shall be with men," when he shall " wipe away 
all tears from their eyes," and " there shall be no 
more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither 
shall there be any more pain ; for the former 
things are passed away." We remember Jesus 
and his transfiguration, and that it was "as he 
prayed" that " the fashion of his countenance was 
altered, and his raiment was white and glistering." 
We recall that it was then that Moses and Eli- 
jah appeared in a glory which smote awake the 
heavy eyes of the apostles, and made them long 
permanently to abide in the divine altitude and 
experience to which they had been raised when 
the Master prayed. We recall the cloud, Jeho- 
vah's token, which overshadowed, filling them 
with fear, and the voice from the cloud commend- 
ing the "beloved Son." And then the voice was 
past, the cloud gone. Jesus touched them and 
said, " Arise, be hot afraid." They rose to take 
up again the tasks of every day, and to go for- 
ward with a better trust in him whom they had 
seen when his prayer was answered in the glory 
of the transfiguration. 

But some one is ready to say, These experiences 



156 NOBLE LIVING. 

are reserved for prophets, saints, and Saviours ; 
we may not hope for them. Nay, but common 
men have enjoyed such approaches to them as to 
make them seem altogether possible to any who 
may but learn to pray ; and in the life-stories of 
many whose times touch on ours, is it discovered 
that true prayer is not infrequently blessed with 
uplifts similar. It has been written of Edward 
Payson, a New England divine, " that his mind at 
times almost lost its sense of the external world, 
in the ineffable thoughts of God's glory, which 
rolled like a sea of light around him, at the throne 
of grace. " Of Cowper also, '■" that, in one of the 
few lucid hours of his religious life, such was 
the experience of God's presence which he en- 
joyed in prayer, that, as he tells us, he thought 
he should have died with joy, if special strength 
had not been imparted to bear the disclosure." 
And the same author tells of one of the Tennents, 
" that, on one occasion, when he was engaged in 
secret devotion, so overpowering was the revela- 
tion of God which opened upon his soul, and 
with augmenting intensity of effulgence as he 
prayed, that at length he recoiled from the intoler- 
able joy as from a pain, and besought God to 



THE UPLIFT OF PRAYER. 157 

withhold from him further manifestations of his 
glory. He said, c Shall thy servant see thee and 
live ? ' And our author continues, " We read 
of the ' sweet hours ' which Edwards enjoyed on 
the banks of Hudson River, in secret converse 
with God, and hear his own description of the 
inward sense of Christ, which at times came into 
his heart, and which he 'knows not how to ex- 
press otherwise than by a calm, sweet abstraction 
of soul from all the concerns of this world ; and 
sometimes a kind of vision ... of being alone 
in the mountains, or some solitary wilderness, far 
from all mankind, sweetly conversing with Christ, 
and rapt and swallowed up in God.' ' 

Is it still urged that these experiences are rare ? 
Not so rare. It was out of experience like this 
that, in her poor home and in her last sickness, 
the only leisure that her life had known perhaps, 
an untaught woman, who had been used all her 
life to the roughest kind of work, said to her min- 
ister, as he stood beside her to pray, " Those folks 
are richest who beg most." She had learned how 
to make the " durable riches " her own. No, these 
experiences, or approaches to them, are not rare ; 
or, if they are, the fault is not on his part, but on 



158 NOBLE LIVING. 

ours. By whatever may serve it, let us make the 
voluntary uplift, and the super-voluntary shall be 
the thing we ask, better things, the vision and ex- 
perience of God himself. From whatever depths, 
let us faithfully pray toward the heights, and God 
will lift us to them. The uplift of prayer begins 
with thee ; God finishes it. 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 



Joseph Kimball Mason. 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 



Religion is an everlasting reality. The latest 
utterances of science, philosophy, and poetry con- 
firm our faith in its permanence and power. 

" We have at length reached a point," says Dr. 
John Fiske, " where it is becoming daily more 
and more apparent that, with deeper study of 
nature, the old strife between faith and knowl- 
edge is drawing to a close ; and, thus disentan- 
gled at last from the ancient slough of despond, 
the human mind will breathe a freer air, and enjoy 
a vastly extended horizon." 

The late Ernest Renan finds in Christ's teach- 
ings, " the sure word on which the edifice of 
eternal religion shall rest, the pure worship of no 
date which all lofty souls will practise to the end 
of time ; and, having run through the whole cir- 
cle of errors, mankind will return to them as the 
imperishable expression of its faith and hope." 

Whittier voices the same profound sentiment in 
these words, — 

161 



162 NOBLE LIVING. 

" The letter fails and systems fall. 
And every symbol wanes ; 
The spirit overbrooding all, 
Eternal love remains." 



So all the thought of the world seems to con- 
firm the reasonable conclusion that religion is as 
lasting as man himself. 

Theology, that is, man's thought about religion, 
is indeed a progressive science, like chemistry, or 
the art of government, or the questions of philan- 
thropy and enlightened charity. It is influenced 
by environment, ruling ideas, and intellectual at- 
tainment. 

In days of superstition and ignorance, magic 
and ceremony are identified Avith religion. In 
times of cruelty, barbarism, and oppression, the 
teaching concerning the divine nature and human 
destiny is colored by the prevailing conceptions of 
humanity and of justice ; while in ages of en- 
lightenment, when general knowledge, scientific 
thought, and free government prevail, theology 
becomes reasonable and true to life. So our 
Christianity may be compared to a stream having 
its source far up in the mountain snows, but be- 
coming corrupted by the soil through which it 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 163 

passes, as it flows down the hillside ; until, emer- 
ging finally in pleasant fields, it journeys on for 
miles over its rocky bed under the light of the 
sun, becoming pure once more as it moves toward 
the sea. 

The leading thoughts of the present-day the- 
ology are the Fatherhood of God, the value of 
man, the leadership of Christ, — who, in his per- 
fect humanity, is at once the mark toward which 
we press and the revelation of the divine charac- 
ter, — the regeneration of human society through 
the acceptance of Christian ideals of conduct, the 
immortality of the human soul, and the spiritual 
progress of the race, involving the final and uni- 
versal triumph of good over evil and so hope 
eternal for the soul of man. Who will deny that 
such teaching as this is in accordance with the 
spirit of the New Testament and is identical with 
religion itself ? We are beginning to know the 
full meaning of Christ's words, " My joy I give 
unto you," and to see that this, and not despair, 
is the secret of the universe. Moreover, though 
materialism and unbelief prevail far too gen- 
erally, and the kingdom of heaven is still in 
the distance, it is our profound conviction that 



164 NOBLE LIVING. 

the world was never more truly religious, never 
nearer to Christ, than it is to-day. 

At this point we touch a danger — the dan- 
ger always attending prosperity — of ignoring the 
fact that divine blessings are conditioned upon 
human activity. Every advance that has been 
made implies human faithfulness and devotion. 
Nothing comes by chance. We rejoice in what 
we call the fruits of our Christian civilization, 
because brave men have lived and toiled in the 
past, rebuking error and sin in their day, and, 
one by one, winning the triumphs of light over 
darkness. So it has been in our progress toward 
a true theology. We stand on the sunlit heights 
of vision, but prophets and apostles in every gen- 
eration have led us there. Hence, to rest upon 
our religion, and to say, practically, the world 
will be saved by waiting, and we have nothing 
to do, is not only our danger, but is contrary to 
all experience. The very nature of our faith 
calls us to act in the present moment, and to 
find in our great hopes no excuse for negligence 
nor for idleness, but rather an inspiration to join 
the cloud of witnesses, and share with them the 
privilege of being co-laborers with God. 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 165 

Every gift of Heaven to man implies correspond- 
ing obligations. Bodily health involves physical 
activity ; mental powers indicate the earnest seek- 
ing after knowledge ; the possession of wealth 
lays upon the holder the duty of using the gift 
for the welfare of the greatest number possible. 
Positions of honor are bestowed upon men not 
that they may have personal ease, but that they 
may render devoted service. Genius implies ex- 
pression ; he who paints or carves or sings must 
use his gift for the happiness and welfare of his 
brother, or the gift perishes, and the possessor is 
dishonored. It is not strange therefore that this 
principle holds good in religion. 

The story is told of one who had always lived 
far inland, and who stood one summer day upon 
the shore of the ocean. "Is this all?" he said; 
"it looks like a tranquil lake." "Yes, this is 
all." But let this observer wait, and see how 
much is involved in this seeming calm. Let him 
observe the tides, as twice a day the great body 
of waters rolls down into the trough of the 
sea, or, wonderful and mysterious, flows back 
again, covering the black wastes, and filling every 
inlet of the land with the inflowing tide. Or let 



166 NOBLE LIVING. 

him, borne forth upon the bosom of this sea, now 
so quiet, behold the storm arise, feel its mighty 
power as it tosses the huge vessels like egg-shells 
on its surface. Let him realize the vastness of 
this channel of the world's traffic, and he will 
apprehend more clearly the powers of the sea. 
It is so with religion. We must know by ex- 
perience before we appreciate the comprehensive- 
ness of that which, when all things else prove 
but a rope of sand, uplifts and sustains the soul. 
It brings peace to the mind indeed, and comfort 
to the heart, and, more than this, it involves 
gracious duties and noble obligations. "If ye 
know these things," said Christ, " happy are ye 
if ye do them." Religion is not only a reality to 
be trusted, but a duty to be performed. He who 
trusts in the Infinite must also heed Christ's in- 
junction, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with 
all thy mind." Faith, in God as an intellectual 
act most men can understand ; but they are not 
so ready to accept a corresponding obligation of 
" love of God." The mind seeks to know the 
cause of things. Not to know the reason of 
being is to live "where musicians are always 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 167 

tuning their instruments, but never play a tune." 
Hence, most men assume the divine philosophy 
in preference to the unsatisfying assumptions of 
materialism, and say, with the author of Genesis, 
" In the beginning God made the heavens and 
the earth." 

The problems of physical and moral evil find 
no solution so adequate as the assumption of a 
loving and all-powerful Being, who will overcome 
evil with good. But when we go on, and affirm 
that the logical outcome of such faith is to love 
the Lord our God, the result is not so generally 
realized or accepted. Men say, " How can we 
love a being whom we have not seen ? Why is it 
not sufficient to believe, and rest there ? " 

In order to answer these questions we must 
proceed to definitions. What is the nature of 
love ? Surely he who spake " as never man 
spake " would not imply an obligation that was 
an impossibility ; moreover, the student of the 
gospel is impressed with the fact that every com- 
mandment there made is written also in the 
nature of things, and may as truly be called 
privilege as commandment. " Christianity," says 
Dr. Andrew Peabody, " cannot enable us to do 



168 NOBLE LIVING. 

more than the right, nor can the rejection of 
Christianity make less than the right incumbent 
upon us ; but this burden Christ makes light 
and easy in two ways. First, by giving us clear 
knowledge of the right in his plain and unmis- 
takable precepts, and most of all in the beauty of 
holiness as exhibited in his life ; and, secondly, 
by the irresistible motives to duty which he 
supplies." 

The only reason why I am bound to do any- 
thing is because it is intrinsically right and fitting. 
Purity, industry, charity, reverence for all that 
is great, love for all that is good, are enjoined 
upon me by the law of my nature. 

Thus we are led to see the reasonableness of 
the requirements of love to God, while at the 
same time the nature of that love is made appar- 
ent. For love to God is reverence toward and 
communion with the All-Perfect. We have affec- 
tion for human companions ; it is natural for us 
to feel admiration for the works of genius and for 
the glorious universe itself, where beauty is an 
all-pervading presence. How natural, therefore, 
that we should revere and commune with the 
infinite Spirit in whose image our human friends 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 169 

are created, of whose wisdom, power, and good- 
ness all outward things are but the expression 
and revelation ! 

Who, then, in the light of such facts, can see 
in this great commandment other than a blessed 
privilege ? The wonder is that any one who be- 
lieves in God, and in such a God as is revealed in 
Christ, can fail to fall upon his knees and adore. 

There are those to-day who tell us that waiv- 
ing, for the time, the question of the existence of 
a Divine wisdom and power, it is apparent that, 
whether such a being is in the universe or not, 
conscious communion with, and love for him, find- 
ing its expression in worship, is an impossibility — 
an indication of an imperfect condition in human 
development. This was the philosophy of August 
Comte. Some of his recent disciples boldly as- 
sert that the day is drawing near when no spires 
shall pierce the sky, and men shall no longer 
wrestle with the invisible, like Jacob, seeking and 
obtaining a blessing. The time and money devoted 
to such purposes will hereafter, it is asserted, be 
given to altruistic schemes for the improvement 
of humanity, and the churches will be converted 
into schools of technology, gymnasiums, theatres, 
and bureaus of scientific charity. 



170 NOBLE LIVING. 

Our attention is frequently called in confirma- 
tion of this position to the break between modern 
thought and faith, to the alienation of culture and 
the hard-working classes from the church, and to 
a so-called irreconcilable conflict between science 
and religion. A traveller comments upon the fact 
that the beautiful and costly St. Patrick's Cathe- 
dral in Dublin is used only for religious services, 
which go on almost without interruption, day 
and night. But the great church stands in the 
midst of a population sunken in poverty and vice, 
constantly disturbing its ceremonies with the pa- 
thetic cry for daily bread, to which, apparently, 
the priest at the altar turns a deaf ear, as he 
swings his censer and chants his prayer. And 
so it is said by some, the institution of worship 
exists in a suffering and needy world to-day a 
useless and extravagant custom, which hardens 
men's hearts to the real needs of society, and 
might better give place to the more practical 
" worship of humanity," that is, the effort to ele- 
vate and improve "the outward condition of the 
other half." 

But these criticisms are all superficial. They 
ignore one of the deepest needs of human nature 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 171 

— communion with the Perfect. Man must wor- 
ship. The commandment to love God is not only 
privilege but jDrophecy. u \y e are cre ated for 
thee," says St. Augustine, " and we can find no 
rest until we rest in thee." When wonder dies, 
and awe exists no longer in the human mind, 
when the sense of mystery and dependence fades 
away, when man becomes less than man, then 
will he cease to look above himself. Knowledge 
only deepens reverence, and leads us to say, 
" O God, thou art our refuge in all genera- 
tions ! " 

So worship, the expression of love toward God, 
is as natural and necessary as faith in him is 
reasonable. It must be admitted, however, that 
it is possible to live, for a time, in neglect of 
this supreme privilege ; indeed, it is one of the 
perils of our day and generation. 

The absorption in things outward and temporal, 
the tendency to discuss " every new thing " purely 
from the intellectual standpoint, and the low 
ideals of life and conduct so common among large 
classes of people, blind the eyes of thousands to 
the real needs of humanity. No longer held in the 
church by the belief that future happiness is some- 



172 NOBLE LIVING. 

how secured by this alliance, the multitudes have 
followed false leaders, and, like the Jews of old, 
deserting the temple of their fathers, have turned 
to their idols. The situation is serious ; for where 
there is no open vision, the people perish. There 
is but one consolation, it must be temporary. 
Driven back by want and woe, the world, like 
the prodigal in the parable, will at length, through 
very starvation, " arise and go to the Father." 

Meanwhile, how plain is the duty of those 
who see the obligations involved in religious faith. 
With sincere spiritual worship they should hold 
forth the word of truth, not driven but drawn 
to the sweet old ways of communion ; saying 
ever with the Psalmist, "A day in thy courts is 
better than a thousand. I had rather be a door- 
keeper in the house of my God than to dwell 
in the tents of wickedness," and so realizing, 
within their own experience, the truth of the' 
beautiful words of Faber, — 

" I worship thee, sweet will of God, 
And all thy ways adore; 
And every day I live, I seem 
To love thee more and more." 

The power of human influence is subtle and 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 173 

far-reaching; and the hardest blow we can give 
the arrogant scepticism that would cheat our 
fellow-men out of the noblest possession of the 
soul — adoring love to God — is to be steadfast 
and unmovable, worshipping him who is a Spirit 
u in spirit and in truth." What blessed results 
in character grow out of the faithful observance 
of this obligation ! By the altar of our prayers 
we spontaneously cast away every lingering com- 
promise with sin. False words, fraudulent acts, 
cruel revenge, guilty relations with our fellow- 
creatures, — these pass from the soul animated 
with love towards God. And in their place comes 
a holy consecration to the true, the beautiful, 
and the good, pervading the heart with happiness 
and praise, as the skylark fills the heavens with 
his glad song. Moreover, it is in the recep- 
tion of this obligation of religion that we are 
led directly to the recognition of all those duties 
to our fellow-men which some thinkers assure us 
should supplant the adoring love of the soul 
toward its Creator. In our love to God we find 
the noblest motive for the second great obliga- 
tion of religion — love toward man. We are all 
the children of an infinite Father, and derive our 



174 NOBLE LIVING. 

being and nature from him, and, therefore, " all 
ye are brethren." For us to say that we love 
God, and at the same time to hate and de- 
stroy our fellow-men, or even to be indifferent 
to their welfare, would be an absurdity. " He 
that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, 
how can he love God whom he hath not seen ? " 
The fact is that religion has never been satisfied 
with raising temples of worship, but has belted 
the earth with kindly charities. Wherever men 
have worshipped a compassionate Father, they 
have become compassionate in turn to their fel- 
low-creatures. Jesus taught that the first duty of 
man is to love the Lord our God ; but he added, 
as though it were a logical conclusion, " and thy 
neighbor as thyself." Moreover, in his example, 
whose whole life was spent in a conscious walk 
with God, Ave have a supreme ideal of the noblest 
and strongest love for man, — a love that knew 
no bounds of nationality, clime, or worth, sought 
everywhere the welfare and happiness of human- 
ity, was as impartial and as changeless as the 
eternal goodness itself. This divine compassion 
for man manifested itself in parables, like that of 
the good Samaritan, which are read with as un- 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 175 

tiring interest to-day as when written, two thou- 
sand years ago. It found expression in deeds of 
mercy that have won the world, and moved his 
followers to do works greater than miracles for 
the amelioration of the suffering, the helpless, the 
degraded, and the sinful. 

Truly, though the form was old, the spirit was 
new in those ever memorable words of his, U A 
new commandment I give unto you, that ye love 
one another, as I have loved you." This last 
clause transformed the love of man from a senti- 
ment to a principle. 

The love which the world practised was as 
the shallow mountain stream to the bottomless 
ocean surrounding the globe, when compared to 
the Divine compassion which Jesus illustrated in 
his teachings and example ; and this spirit is 
an obligation of religion incumbent upon every 
one who has heard and obeyed his summons, who 
said, "Follow me." It is the test of discipleship. 

What a transformation would the recognition 
of such a duty, and its universal practice, effect 
in human society ! What must become of every 
debasing trade, of every immoral custom, that in- 
jures or degrades our fellow-man, in the light of 



176 NOBLE LIVING. 

this principle? So-called Christian nations would 
hardly send forth vessels to the heathen with mis- 
sionaries on the deck and rum in the hold. It 
would not be necessary to reveal to an aston- 
ished world the extent of the opium trade be- 
tween Christian England and heathen China. 
Protests would be unnecessary against the publi- 
cation of immoral literature ; while the relations 
of capital and labor, and the problems of dealing 
with the criminal classes, would find speedy set- 
tlement if men accepted the sentiment of the 
apostle, " in honor preferring one another." 

Christian nations bearing upon their banners 
the cross of Christ, the supreme expression of 
love to man, would hardly find it consistent to 
deplete Europe of her best young life that their 
standing armies might be maintained in idleness ; 
or to tax the poor to the point of despair for the 
support of a useless and oftentimes degenerate 
nobility. 

Instead of lamenting our small navy, it would 
be counted the glory of America that she had 
passed the need of such relics of barbarism, save 
for commercial purposes or as illustrations of 
human progress in scientific knowledge. Love 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 177 

to man like this, would suggest better methods 
for the settlement of national questions than the 
terrible destruction and the cruel and widespread 
sufferings produced by war and bloody persecu- 
tions, of which, alas ! we have illustrations in 
this end of the century. Our prisons would be- 
come workshops and schools, where, by severe 
discipline, the criminal, never deprived of hope, 
should, through a righteous punishment, involv- 
ing wholesome instruction, arise to self-respecting 
manhood. 

The poor would find — what they need more 
than money — friends to redeem them from their 
poverty ; while strikes and labor-wars would dis- 
appear when the law of love moved the employer 
to justice, and the employee to faithfulness. 

Think, too, what transforming influence would 
be felt in the more private relations of life ! 
The stability of the home would be secured; and 
many, governed by principle where now passion 
rules, would remain faithful to the solemn vows 
made at the altar — vows so often lightly broken, 
and bringing with sad and increasing frequency 
such unholy results into many a desolate dwell- 
ing. 



1<8 NOBLE LIVING. 

After all, the question in society is not so much 
whether we shall have a severe or liberal law of 
divorce, as whether men shall recognize the fact 
that true love is not hateful lust, but a change- 
less and unselfish devotion to the welfare of its 
objects. 

Dr. Ware writes delightfully of the Compro- 
mises of Love. Happy, thrice happy will be our 
homes, happy the children, now so often more un- 
fortunate than if deprived by death of parental 
care, when men learn the meaning of that phrase ! 

Love to man will lead to the only toleration 
worth the name ; that is, a sincere respect for the 
honest opinion of our neighbor, and the recogni- 
tion of the fact that all who are seeking the 
truth are our fellow-laborers, and are the instru- 
ments as truly as ourselves in the hands of divine 
Providence for bringing about the answer to the 
world's prayer, " Thy kingdom come." 

It is said that " the world has outgrown Christ 
and his religion." Outgrown Christ ! When we 
compare the actual condition of society with the 
ideals suggested to our minds by his law of love, 
how apparent it is that we have not yet touched 
the hem of his garment ! 



THE OBLIGATIONS OF RELIGION. 179 

Dean Stanley tells of an old Scotch Methodist 
who in his earlier years had clung vehemently 
to one or the other of two small sects on either 
side of the street. " The street I am now trav- 
elling in, lad, has nae sides ; and if power were 
given me, I would preach purity of life more, and 
purity of doctrine less, than I did." — "Are you 
not a little heretical in your old age ? " said his 
interlocutor. "I care na\ Names have not 
the same terror on me they once had, and since 
I have grown old, I have had whisperings of the 
still small voice that the footfalls of faith and 
their wranglings will never be heard in the Lord's 
kingdom whereunto I am nearing; and, as love 
cements all differences, I'll perhaps find the place 
roomier than I thought in times by past/' 

Thus are we led to see what gracious privi- 
leges are involved in our religious faith, as we 
stand in the sunlight of that interpretation of 
Christianity which leads us, in the spirit of Christ, 
to call God our Father, and to say of our brother 
man, " O God, I can trust for the human soul." 
May we also learn that this Christian optimism 
leads not to indifference. It is instead a most 
strict and solemn standard of duty, teaching us 



180 NOBLE LIVING. 

that there is "no substitute " for purity of heart 
and uprightness of life. It is the will of God 
that his kingdom should come upon earth, and 
that " all men should be saved, and come to a 
knowledge of the truth; " yet this divine purpose 
will be realized in this world or any other realm 
of being only when each child of God is imbued 
with a profound sense . of the obligations of re- 
ligion. For the prayers and adoration of his 
children return from the bosom of God to the 
hearts of men, transformed into gracious and 
changeless purposes for the redemption of human- 
ity, even as the mists of the mighty cataract, 
thundering in its solitudes, rise to the skies only 
to come back with fructifying power to the earth 
again. In the language of Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son, " This great, overgrown, dead Christianity 
of ours still keeps alive, at least, the name of 
a Lover of mankind. But one day all men will 
be lovers, and every calamity will be dissolved 
in the universal sunshine," — the day when all 
men worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 



Gideon Isaac Keikn. 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 



When the advent of Jesus was announced, 
the angel said to Joseph, " It is he that shall 
save his people from their sins." It is of this 
saving power of Jesus, of his work in the human 
heart, of him as " the Word made flesh " and 
dwelling among men, and of him as the life and 
energy of the soul, leading it to God, that I am 
to write. The subject is a practical one. I am 
to have in mind the man or woman engaged in 
the cares of life ; therefore the purely theological 
or controversial will, so far as possible, be avoided. 
Yet, since the theme is Christ as a Saviour of 
the individual soul, any doctrine germane to the 
subject must of necessity be practical. 

I. Saved by the Power of Christ's Personality. 

The human mind is so constituted that it is 
most effectually moved by personality. An ab- 
stract truth or theory will have an effect upon 

183 



184 NOBLE LIVING. 

any mind which comprehends it ; but the most 
effectual means of giving it possession of the 
mind is through some person in whom the truth 
dwells as a moving power. The most efficient 
agent for bringing about a reform is not a list of 
written precepts upon the subject, but those pre- 
cepts embodied in a warm heart. We often hear 
men say of certain wrongs that they will right 
themselves, or that certain difficulties will " take 
care of themselves." The truth is, they never 
did take care of themselves, and they never will. 
They have always been taken care of by personal 
sacrifice. William of Orange took care of the 
oppression of Holland ; Martin Luther, of the 
Reformation ; Channing, Murray, and Ballou, of 
the more liberal ideas of God and the brighter 
destiny of the human race. The same has been 
true of every reform, from. the most ancient to the 
most recent. Mighty truths must have mighty 
souls to voice them in word and life before the 
world can comprehend them. All the greatest 
and best principles of our modern civilization 
have been paid for in the coin of personal effort 
and sacrifice. Such is the law of human progress. 
It is through the operation of this law that 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 185 

Christ has had such a marvellous effect upon the 
world, and has saved every soul whom he has 
saved. It is through this law that he will con- 
tinue to work until he hath drawn all men unto 
himself. Perhaps nearly all his truths had been 
taught in some form before he came ; but they 
never took hold of the world as they did when 
he taught them. The reason of this is that 
when he once taught a truth it was ever after- 
ward imbued with his personality. He never 
wrote a gospel ; but the truths of the gospel he 
taught were so intimately and vitally a part of 
himself, and he so impressed his life upon his 
followers, that wherever his teachings go in his 
name somehow his personality goes with them. 
It is a marvellous fact that he vitalizes his word 
with a subtle influence, with an individuality, a 
magnetism, a something which no one can de- 
scribe, but which everyone recognizes, a some- 
thing which cannot be taken, from it because it 
is an essential part, and which gives it its power 
over the human soul. It is Christ, and not his 
truth only, that moves us. 

Thus in all the duties and struggles of every- 
day life we have the help of his inspiration. The 



186 NOBLE LIVING. 

man under temptation finds an example of resist- 
ance and a help to victory in the forty days in 
the wilderness. The selfish heart finds its selfish- 
ness rebuked and ultimately destroyed by the 
life of Christ, for he teaches brotherly love as 
much by deed as by word. The man prone to 
revenge learns from him to forgive his brother, 
" not until seven times seven, but until seventy 
times seven." All other teaching of forgiveness 
pales before his own act in his dying hour. Who 
can, in thoughtful imagination, sit at the foot of 
the cross and witness the awful cruelty of his 
enemies, and hear in the moment of his greatest 
agony his prayer, " Father, forgive them," and 
not turn away ashamed of his own unrelenting 
disposition. Perhaps we feel that the most diffi- 
cult thing for us to do is to love our enemies. 
Here again Jesus asks only what he himself did 
from the beginning. He loved his friends and 
loved them tenderly ; but he loved his enemies 
also. He saw in them something more than an 
enemy, something more than bigotry and sin ; 
he saw a brother, a child of God, a possible saint. 
Such examples, which might be extended to 
almost any length, are sufficient to show the close 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 187 

personal relation between the sayings and the life 
of Christ, that he not only taught us what to do, 
but showed us how to do it. 

" When Jesus, our great Master, came 
To teach us in his Father's name, 
In every act, in every thought, 
He lived the precepts which he taught." 

In Jesus we have not only an example, but a 
perfect example ; far above us, it is true, but the 
more helpful on that account, because a man can 
best shape his character only in comparison with a 
perfect model. A recent writer says, in illustra- 
tion of this thought, that the most skilful wood- 
carver, working with the greatest care, cannot 
make his second copy from his first, his third 
from his second, and so on to a large number of 
copies, lest in his last production he would not 
recognize his original model, because he had suc- 
cessively copied his unconscious errors. He must 
always have his model before him, and work from 
that. If this is true in the material and the seen, 
how much more is it true in the spiritual and 
the unseen, which enter into the formation of 
character. Man must have constantly before him 
a faultless model by which to work, else human 



188 NOBLE LIVING. 

defects will be unrecognized. Christ is himself 
that much needed model, that perfect example 
in all things, by which we may shape our char- 
acters, causing them to grow more and more 
like him who was " without sin." As Elizabeth 
Channing has so finely said, " By his life he set 
the most perfect example of goodness that man 
can conceive, reverent and obedient as a child, 
in maturit}^ a model of active and passive virtue. 
Awake to the sinfulness of sin and faithfully 
warning of its deformity, he loved the sinner and 
labored for his salvation. He went about doing 
good, but observed meditation and prayer. In 
his character, he was free from earthly ambition, 
and steadily aspired to spiritual perfection. His 
trust in his divine Father was as complete as 
his sympathy for his human brother. His pity 
for his enemies equalled his love for his friends." 
Some one may ask, " Does not Christ save us 
by his death ? " Only in the same way that he 
saves us by his life. That which is generally 
known as Christ's atonement is a result, and not 
a process. Atonement is at-one-ment. It means 
a state of harmony, or union with God. This is 
the result of all that Christ did, both in his life 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 189 

and in his death. There is no magic or mystery 
in his death which makes it the all of his saving 
power ; but there is a much needed help and ex- 
ample to be found in the way in which he bore 
the suffering and trials of the last day of his life. 
If there is one thing that the world needs to-day 
more than anything else, it is a loyalty to con- 
viction, and a revival of the sense of duty and 
moral responsibility. There is a large class of 
people who live as though they thought they 
were to consult only their pleasure and con- 
venience in assuming the responsibilities of life. 
The call of duty is unknown to them. The voice 
of pleasure is the only voice they hear. They 
are loyal to so much of truth as will cost them 
nothing, or so much as every one else believes. 
If, perchance, God gives them a higher truth, 
they hide it under a bushel lest they lose some 
of their popularity, if it be known that they 
possess it. Many people who think themselves 
saved by the death or " the blood " of Christ are 
fallen into this very sin, from which his death 
was designed to save them. lie could have been 
popular had he chosen to be disloyal, and live 
as though it mattered not what ho believed, or 



190 NOBLE LIVING. 

where he cast his influence. He could have 
escaped suffering had he chosen to run away 
from duty. Had he done this, he would not 
have been a complete Saviour, for he would have 
encouraged that sin from which our day and gen- 
eration is suffering so much. He chose rather 
to be loyal to his convictions, though it cost 
him his life. He felt a deep moral responsi- 
bility. He knew that he owed it to his Father 
to be faithful to the highest which He had given 
him, and trust the result to His infinite love. 
How much of the saving power of Christ's death 
the world has lost because it has been looking 
to it for something which it does not contain, 
and because it has failed to see that which is 
really there ! If, instead of seeking the mysteri- 
ous, men had only looked to Calvary for the 
highest manifestations of a simple, faithful, brave 
adherence to truth and the call of duty, which 
is the voice of God, we would have been a 
braver and stronger people than we are ; we 
would have been more ready to bear moral re- 
sponsibilities, and the highest truths would have 
been more generally established. Every man who 
comes thoroughly to know, with mind and heart, 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 191 

the calm, loyal, victorious Jesus under trial, will 
be led by him to victory. 

In this capacity of teacher, example, and per- 
sonal embodiment of divine life, Jesus becomes 
our Saviour from sin. To the sinner who com- 
pares himself with the immaculate he brings con- 
viction ; then his attitude toward the convicted 
is a strong and tender admonition to forsake sin ; 
then, when the resolution to forsake sin is made, 
that is, when the man is converted, Jesus, by the 
marvellous fulness of his life, imparts power to 
walk in the better way ; for every one who will 
ask himself, " What would Christ do were he in 
my place? "will find, if sufficiently familiar with 
his life, just the word or deed that will help him. 
No one ever was, and no one ever will be, placed 
in circumstances involving principles which were 
not involved in something that Christ said or did. 
Not that he performed the outward acts which 
we are to perform, not that Ave are to do at all 
times the deeds done by him, nor that we are 
necessarily to use the ceremonies and ritual of his 
time ; but in the life he lived in his day and age 
of the world, and with the people of his time, he 
exemplified every principle which we are called 



192 NOBLE LIVING. 

upon to use in our time, applied to our affairs. 
This is the work of the Saviour under the divine 
law of personality ; it is the touch of Christ upon 
the soul of man, bidding it be clean and strong. 

II. Saved by Christ's Revelation. 

Christ saves by revealing that which the world 
could not otherwise know, or could not have 
known so soon as it did, had it not been for his 
revelation. He reveals the character of God. It 
is impossible for man, by any help whatsoever, 
fully to know God. It is difficult for him to 
form even a helpful idea of a Being so vast; 
and yet it is indispensable to his best living that 
he should have some understanding of the char- 
acter of his Creator. Ignorance of God, or wrong 
ideas of him, have held man in bondage to doubt, 
fear, and superstition, and have made a tyrant of 
him who otherwise would have been a brother. 
It is possible for a man without a belief in God 
to live a good life ; but it is impossible for him 
to live as good a life as he could had he a realiz- 
ing sense of the Father. And yet, indispensable 
as this knowledge is to the best living, man must 
have some help in order that he obtain it in any 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 193 

satisfactory measure. Left to himself, he is lost 
in his own abstractions and errors. If all the ele- 
ments in the character of the Infinite could be 
combined in miniature in one person, it would be 
possible for our little minds to comprehend that 
person, and so know enough of God to meet the 
soul's practical need. Such a person would serve 
as a picture in which we might see the nature and 
disposition of the Infinite. We have this much 
needed miniature, this picture of God (I speak 
reverently), in Christ. He came as a representa- 
tive of God, not representing His greatness, for 
that would be impossible, but His goodness or the 
quality of His character. This he so well portrays 
that he could say, " He that hath seen me, hath 
seen the Father." That is, he who thoroughly 
knows Christ has been led through him to know 
the character of God. To know one's character is 
to know that person. " The conception of God 
has been spiritualized through the teachings of 
Jesus. He is no longer to the believing soul 
mere will, intellect, or holiness ; He is not force, 
power, or law. He is one like ourselves ; a friend 
to whom we can go, whom we can lean upon; a 
master who teaches us the word of life ; a loving 



1 ( J4 NOBLE LIVING. 

heart that trusts us and is trusted by us. He 
turns not from us when we forget Him, but grows 
even more anxious for our good, if that is possi- 
ble. Though we forget Him and revile Him, and 
will have none of His love, yet He loves on and 
will never forsake us. It has thus come about 
that the thought of God is winning, attractive, 
uplifting." In Christ God makes a unique ap- 
proach to man, and brings so much of himself 
within man's perception as it is possible for him 
to comprehend. Jesus thus becomes a revelator, 
disclosing that which the world did not know, and 
that which we have no right to say it ever could 
have known in its tenderness and fulness without 
such revelation. 

Christ's revelation saves from weakness. Man 
is made to feel that he is not left to depend upon 
himself alone. He is made to know that infinite 
wisdom, power, and love, which know no failure, 
will sustain him, and consequently he is filled 
with hope. The wounded soldier on the field of 
battle is faint and weary, and feels that he must 
die. Just as he is about to fall out of the ranks 
he hears the cry of victory shouted back from the 
front. It fills him with new courage and strength. 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 195 

He forgets his fatigue, forgets his wounds, and 
presses forward that he too may participate in the 
victory. So with the soldier in life's battle. He 
is wounded and sin-stained and faint, and feels 
that he can do no more, when, from the Captain 
of salvation, he hears sounded back from the dis- 
tant future the cry of " Victory, victory to the 
hosts of God, victory, for ' God is all in all.' ' It 
gives him new courage, new power ; he presses 
forward that he may participate in the final and 
eternal triumph of righteousness. This bright 
and victorious end Christ declares when he says, 
" And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will 
draw all men unto me ; " when he says, " There 
shall be one fold and one shepherd ; " when he 
enunciates the parable of the lost sheep and the 
lost piece of money ; and, in fact, whenever he 
tells of the all-conquering love of the Father. 
To think of God as Creator may cause one to 
wonder at his power and resources ; to think of 
him as Judge only, may cause one to tremble be- 
fore his throne ; but to think of him as a loving 
Father who will reach after his children and ulti- 
mately induce them all to come home, is to have 
one's love, and all that is good within one, stirred 



196 NOBLE LIVING. 

and brought to life in response to the love and 
goodness enthroned above. When the world 
comes to know this, it will be saved from despair 
and weakness, and will be filled with joy and 
hope. 

As revelator Jesus saves from overwhelming 
sorrow. To one beset with " living trouble " he 
shows that the value of existence is not to be 
measured by the amount of its gladness or sad- 
ness, but by the life of the soul, God's greatest 
gift, which is back of all joy and sorrow. Hav- 
ing this in abundance, man can lose other bless- 
ings, if he must, and still feel that the greater 
and better part remains. Every faithful Chris- 
tian comes to feel as one of the first and per- 
haps the greatest Christian felt, that " our light 
affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for 
us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
glory ; while we look not at the things that are 
seen, but at the things that are not seen." A 
lady of beautiful Christian spirit, who had been 
under very great trial, once said to me, " I would 
not for the world again go through with what I 
have undergone ; and yet, somehow, now that 
I have passed through it, I would not for the 



SA VED B Y CHRIS T. 197 

world be without it ; for I have approached nearer 
than ever before to my Saviour and my God, and 
they have given me blessings which it seems to 
me I could never otherwise have received, and 
which are the most precious treasures I possess." 
She simply realized the truth of what Paul says 
in his words just quoted. She had received the 
blessing Christ promises to all the weary and 
heavy-laden that come unto him. 

When death comes Jesus destroys it by bring- 
ing life and immortality to light, and causes it 
to lose its former dread significance, and to take 
its place as only one incident in the continuous 
life which begins with birth and lasts forever. 
To such as receive from him this faith in its 
fulness, there can be no anxiety about those who 
have passed on, nor any doubt about meeting 
them in the future, for the promises which Jesus 
makes are assured to us by no less than infinite 
power. They hear them as the voice of God 
speaking through His Son. The tender words of 
comfort spoken to the apostles in their sorrowing 
hour are spoken alike to all : " Let not your 
heart be troubled : ye believe in God, believe 
also in me. In my Father's house are many 



198 NOBLE LIVING. 

mansions : if it were not so, I would have told 
you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if 
I go and prepare a place for you, I will come 
again, and receive you unto myself ; that where 
I am, there ye may be also.'* He who thor- 
oughly believes in Jesus and these blessed prom- 
ises can never be overthrown by any possible 
calamity or sorrow, but in spite of all will have 
a peace which surpasses his own understanding, 
and which Jesus gives, not "as the world gives," 
but as he alone can give. 

The child born into this world is confronted 
with the unknown and mysterious as soon as its 
intelligence begins to take cognizance of its sur- 
roundings. It asks its elders and parents puz- 
zling questions. They stand to it in the relation 
of interpreters of — 

" The meaning hid life's common things beneath." 

These mysteries do not all vanish with increasing 
years and intelligence. Some of them even grow 
deeper and more profound. Man asks, " Why 
suffering ? Why ignorance ? Why is sin al- 
lowed ? What is man ? What his destin}^ ? " 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 199 

Many have been thrown into doubt and darkness 
because they could not satisfactorily answer these 
and other equally perplexing questions. They 
need an interpreter, some one who can at least 
give a key by the aid of which the answer may 
be discovered. Jesus is that interpreter. He 
shows us manhood as it is to be when its growth 
and development are complete. He answers our 
question, " What is man ? " by teaching that he 
is a child of God, a brother of himself, and 
hence possessing a nature similar to his own, 
and capable of results like those we see in him. 
He explains and exalts manhood by setting it 
before us in its ideal form. He who sees in 
Jesus that which represents what God designs 
that he himself shall be when the divine work 
is completed in his soul, can never be troubled 
about the value or meaning of life, even though 
it is beset by heavy burdens and severe trials. 
He even explains these burdens and trials; he 
interprets the ignorance and mistakes and sins 
of life by showing them to be the struggles of 
imperfection toward designed perfection, of im- 
purity toward designed purity. He makes all 
these things plainer by revealing the ideal man- 



200 NOBLE LIVING. 

hood in which they are to result. He interprets 
to each man his life by revealing to him its 
nature, its aims, and its possibilities. The man 
who finds his own life explained in the greater 
and fuller life of Jesus, finds likewise every other 
man's life so explained, since every other man is 
his brother, under the same Providence, and of 
similar nature and destiny. He interprets the 
future by showing it to be but the enlarged 
and purified present. As we have already seen, 
he is the great interpreter of the doings and 
purposes of God. When he declares the univer- 
sal brotherhood of man, the universal Father- 
hood of God, the universal immortality of the 
soul, the final, universal triumph of good over 
evil, he throws an inextinguishable flood of light 
on life's dark places. Jesus, life's interpreter, is 
indeed " the light of the world." 

He does not give us the interpretation, written 
page by page and word by word ; but, what is 
better, he indicates the direction wherein, with 
faith and wisdom for his guide, man may ulti- 
mately reach the plain and satisfactory end. He 
is himself the great luminary of the way, the guid- 
ing star by which the soul may confidently pursue 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 201 

its course in search of truth and peace and life. 
When Jesus reveals the unconquering love which 
rules the universe, he reveals the key by which, 
and by Avhich alone, all life's mysteries may be 
solved. I could not know these things as I know 
them now, were it not for him ; he is therefore 
my Saviour, because he is my revelator. Phillips 
Brooks says, " Christ's redemption of the world 
means, for each man who believes it, just these 
three things : the revelation to man of his own 
value, the value of his fellow-man, and the near- 
ness and dearness of God." The man who prac- 
tically knows this is lifted above his fears and 
doubts. 

in. Salvation above Salvation from Sin. 

The saving power of Christ does not end here. 
To save a man from sin and every moral evil is 
a w^ork marvellously great. Our hearts gladly 
cry out that it is sufficient to give him a "name 
which is above every name." But, great as it is, 
there is a phase of his saving power which goes 
even farther. When we think of him as he lived 
on earth, he never seems to us as merely a sinless 
man. He was more than this, much more. There 



202 NOBLE LIVING. 

is a transcendent greatness on which our minds 
are fixed when we think of him. His soul had 
wrought itself through the realm of temptation 
into that of communion. 

His prayers are the soul's earnest pleading, the 
child's confident talk with the Father. In their 
beautiful simplicity they confide in a Father's ten- 
derness. With him there is no room for specula- 
tion or query about God ; he does not simply have 
faith in Him, he seems to know Him as positively 
as he knew Peter and James and John. He knew 
that he could not be alone even in his hour of 
darkness, when the disciples forsook him, for the 
Father was with him. There was a union of his 
life with God which is always conscious of the 
divine presence and counsel and inspiration and 
love. As to the endless life of all his Father's 
children, that was no more to be questioned than 
that the sun shines. His soul was so full of life 
that he lived and moved in these great spiritual 
realities. When we come to know this fulness of 
Jesus, we realize how much less than this, and 
how far below it, is mere sinlessness. It is his 
mission to man to give him more than sinlessness. 
Fie say, " I came that ye might have life, and 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 203 

have it more abundantly." To be saved from sin 
is negative, but to be filled with life is positive. 
It is salvation above salvation from sin. 

The followers of Christ will be led into this 
graduate salvation, into the more abundant life 
which he came to bring, and into the knowledge 
which results from it. The degree of such knowl- 
edge may depend upon many things ; it may de- 
pend upon education and surroundings, or upon 
what one thinks he ought to see in life, but it 
will depend chiefly upon purity. The sinful soul 
is necessarily the blind soul. " Blessed are the 
pure in heart, for they shall see God." None of 
us is wholly pure, consequently none of us has an 
entirely clear spiritual vision. There are many, 
however, who are able to hear the first accents 
of the still small voice, and to understand some- 
thing of its message. They have begun to know 
those truths which come by this means. The 
critic may tell them, if he will, that they do not 
know what they profess to know ; and yet they 
do know it, despite the contrary opinion. The 
soul has various avenues of knowledge. The 
heart is one of them. In some things the heart 
is more reliable than the mind or the senses. 



204 NOBLE LIVING. 

When the heart of man gives him a fact, the 
value of which it is better able to determine than 
any other faculty of his being, he should receive 
it with the same confidence that he would had it 
come through some other avenue. Man should 
feel that he knows this class of facts as really as 
he knows any other class. " The natural man 
receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: 
for they are foolishness to him : neither can he 
know them, because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned." They must be so discerned. The other 
faculties are incapable of clearly seeing them, and 
fully appreciating them. It is the man of abun- 
dant spiritual perception who penetrates them most 
deeply and knows them best, hence his opinion 
upon these things is the more likely to be correct. 
He has learned of his great spiritual teacher to 
look into the future, and to know the Father. 
This is the beginning of that larger life which 
Christ works in the heart of his follower. He 
leads him up out of the realm of temptation and 
conflict, through which he himself passed, into 
that of knowledge and communion. 

But the end is not yet. As far as the eye of 
the spirit can penetrate, we see the Lamb of God 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 205 

leading the race of man on and on in purity and 
knowledge and love to higher and still higher 
degrees of perfection. The endless future grows 
brighter, richer, and happier. This conception 
elates my soul with hope, it stirs my being with 
power to achieve, it fills my heart with love and 
gratitude to my Saviour, it moves me to avow 
faithfulness in my discipleship. The mission of 
Christ does not end when he has saved the world 
from sin. He is its leader in the boundless fields 
of perfection. So far as we can know, he is to 
lead humanity on forever and forever. 

I have tried to show the work of Christ in the 
soul of man ; how by the power of his great per- 
sonality he impresses the principles of righteous- 
ness, how he reveals the truth that makes us free, 
and finally, how he leads us into communion and 
accord with God and the eternal. No one knows 
better than I how inadequately this has been 
done, and to how small a portion of these great 
truths I have been able to give utterance. Their 
greatness and beauty would surpass a more facile 
pen. The devout soul may realize them, although 
it may not find words sufficient to express that 



206 NOBLE LIVING. 

reality. To any one who would know these things 
to their heart's content, let me, in conclusion, 
offer a few thoughts leading to their attainment. 
In the first place, you cannot receive the life of 
a man whom you do not know. In order to be 
helped by Christ, you must know him. Is it any 
wonder that many receive so little from his reli- 
gion, when they give him so little thought? Be 
a daily reader of his life ; be familiar with it 
all, especially its greatest chapters ; ponder much 
upon his choicest sayings ; dwell with him at 
Nazareth, and look out with him from those 
native hills upon life, and feel his yearning to 
save the world in which he lived; go with him 
to his baptism, and there with him make your 
own consecration ; hear him call his first disciples ; 
go with him on his journey to Galilee, and stop 
at Jacob's well, and hear the conversation with 
the woman of Samaria ; journey on to Nazareth, 
and enter the synagogue with his neighbors and 
kinsmen, and listen to the sermon from the text 
for his life, " The spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel 
to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken- 
hearted, to preach deliverance to the captive, and 



SA VED B Y CHRIS T. 207 

recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty 
them that are bruised, and to preach the accept- 
able year of the Lord ; " dwell with him in his 
Capernaum home ; sail with him the Sea of Gali- 
lee, and listen to his parables and sermons from 
nature ; go with him on his missionary journeys, 
and behold him touch the diseased with health, 
and the dead with life ; then turn with him 
towards Jerusalem to celebrate his last Passover ; 
after the busy days in the Temple, go out on 
the evenings of that marvellous final week of 
his life to Bethany, and, surrounded with loving 
friends, enjoy a quiet rest in that peaceful village 
home ; when you are purest in heart, enter that 
holy of holies, the upper room, and sit with him 
and his disciples at the last supper, and listen 
to his tender parting words; then, purified still 
more by this sacred experience, you may go with 
him to dark Gethsemane, and standing apart, may 
weep with him in his deep anguish, and witness 
him returning serene and courageous. After this 
you will not be surprised at his calmness in the 
judgment hall, and will be prepared for his 
victory on Calvary, and can with sympathy enter 
into his transcendent glory on the resurrection 



208 NOBLE LIVING. 

morn. Make his life from the manger to the 
ascension an open book, familiar in every word 
and deed, cherished in all its beauty. Know him, 
and you shall be known of him. 

In the second place, when you have thus lived 
with Christ and become acquainted with him, 
when you have seen that his religion was life, 
and that he came not so much to teach a new 
theology as to live a new life, in a word, when 
you have seen what he was, be like him. Be the 
new husband and father, the new wife and mother, 
the new son or daughter, the new brother or 
sister, the new business man, the new ruler, the 
new man or woman in any sphere, which he 
would have you be. Like him make all things 
divine because they are done for God and to God, 
and not as unto men alone. When he says to 
you, " Love your enemies," do it. When he asks 
you to deny yourself, and take up your cross and 
follow him, obey, no matter how heavy that cross 
may be. All along your life, when he calls you 
to service, be quick to heed and faithful to fulfil. 

Finally, you have seen, as you have followed 
him, how often Christ went away to pray, how 
earnestly he prayed for his disciples and himself, 



SAVED BY CHRIST. 209 

what an inexhaustible source of power this was to 
him, and how his life was transfigured by prayer. 
If this great strong personality must have fre- 
quent recourse to prayer in order to be sustained, 
much more must we. If he could not do without 
this help, how much less can we who are weaker 
than he. Let deep, earnest, simple prayer be thy 
daily habit; for if "in his name," that is, in his 
spirit, ye ask, " it shall be given unto you." 

Who can say that Christ does not still actively 
and personally help his followers ? When he was 
about to depart he assured the disciples that he 
would be with them after he had gone away ; that 
is, after he had finally withdrawn his visible pres- 
ence from them. There is no reason to think 
that it was possible for him to be with them, and 
is not now possible for him to be with us. They 
were men as we are men, and, when he had gone 
away, were related to him as his faithful followers 
are related to him to-day. There is, therefore, 
no reason to think that this promise was for them 
alone. We know that he is with us in the mighty 
uplift and marvellous inspiration of his great 
historic personality as recorded in the Gospels ; 
but is he not with us even now in a still closer 



210 NOBLE LIVING. 

and more vital personal, soul-to-soul relation ? 
The thought may be beyond us, we may not be 
able to see how it is, and yet he who never failed 
in any promise hath promised it. We may then 
feel assured that we can even now come into a 
spiritual meeting with the personal Jesus, and that 
he may touch and quicken us with new life 
and strength. Blessed privilege, sacred help ! to 
look up to him, and feel that he is speaking to us 
when he says, "Zo, I am ivith you alway, even 
unto the end of the world." 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 



Harrison Spofford Whitman. 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 





Many years ago, a little vessel might have 
been seen, with sails spread, making across the 
dark Sea of Galilee. There were but a handful 
of men. One of them, reclining in the stern 
of the boat, was fast asleep. The others were 
beginning to cast anxious looks upon the black 
leaden clouds piling up so ominously from every 
side. It is but five miles across to the lonely 
deserted region on the eastern shore whither 
they were journeying. They were girt in with 
rugged hills and towering peaks. And before 
them these desolate hills, without a visible habi- 
tation or a single tree, rose abruptly from the 
water over a thousand feet. 

Suddenly the storm that had been gathering 
struck down upon this little band in all its fury. 
The waves, lashed by the tempest, beat about 
them with terrific force, rising every moment 
higher and higher. The danger was extreme. 

213 



214 NOBLE LIVING. 

Yet the sleeper slept on, unmindful of the storm, 
the tumult, and the terror. But now the angry 
waves were beginning to pour over into the ves- 
sel itself, threatening every moment to ingulf 
it. Then the disciples, almost beside themselves 
with fear, awoke him with piercing cries of wild 
excitement, " Lord ! Master ! save ! we perish ! " 
Thereupon the Master arose in the calm majesty 
of his strength ; and hushing the raging tumult in 
their souls with the quiet words, " Why so fearful, 
O ye of little faith?" he looked out upon the 
tempestuous sea, and said, " Peace ! he still." 
And immediately the winds ceased, and there was 
a great calm. 

It is refreshing to dwell upon this picture — 
Jesus, at a single word, calming the troubled 
sea. For in this occurrence, which was enacted 
of old on the Sea of Galilee, we have a visible 
representation of the wonderful power which the 
Son of man exercises over the souls of men in 
all ages since. He stilled the raging waters. 
He spoke ; and the sea was at rest, hushed into 
stillness and peace. So does he calm the troubled 
soul. That " voice of a Saviour heard across the 
long generations can calm wilder storms than 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 215 

ever buffeted into fury the bosom of the inland 
lake." 

Now, what is the secret of Christ's power? 
How is it that he is able to send peace into the 
human soul ? And what is the nature of this 
peace which he imparts? 

It may help to a clear understanding of this 
whole matter if we turn to the life of Jesus in 
its calm serenity. That life was pre-eminently a 
life of deep, unalloyed peace. It was not that he 
was exempt from temptation. He was tempted 
in all points as we are tempted. It was not that 
he was exempt from trial and suffering. He was 
" a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." 
He knew, from personal experience, all about the 
hardships of life, — deprivation, want, weary toil. 
Often he had not where to lay his head. He 
was " despised and rejected of men." He en- 
countered the fiercest of opposition. He was 
maligned and misrepresented, pursued even unto 
death by the cruel hate of bitter enemies. And 
in the darkest hour he was deserted by his 
friends, and left to bear his burden alone. Yet, 
in spite of all these untoward circumstances, one 
cannot fail to be impressed with the deep, abiding 



216 NOBLE LIVING. 

peace which characterized his whole life. There 
was no emergency so great or so sudden as to be- 
tray him unto undue agitation. When awakened 
suddenly from deep sleep at night by shrieking 
cries of fear, with the wild wind howling, and 
the waves breaking over him, he was yet calm, 
and evinced no sign of alarm. So in all the 
exigencies of his life. How the strife of men 
raged all about him ! But with what composure 
did he bear himself through it all ! It was the 
composure of absolute strength and absolute trust. 
There is no trace of anxiety or distraction or 
perturbation in all his life, in any word, act, or 
attitude, not even in that last scene in the 
divine tragedy, when, betrayed and deserted by 
his friends, when, mocked and scourged and cruci- 
fied by his enemies, he hung bleeding upon the 
cross. As Dr. Fairbairn says, " While human 
passions were darkening Christ's path, and human 
enmities were preparing the doom that was to 
be his glory, sweet peace sat like the blessed 
angel of God within his spirit, and filled it with 
celestial light and joy." Not all the beating and 
tossing of the world of humanity could shake the 
serenity of his soul. His life reached up so com- 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 217 

pletely into the Father's life, he found such per- 
fect security and assurance in the ever present 
nearness and love of the Fathef, that he could 
but be profoundly at peace amid all the strife 
and turmoil of a wild, tempestuous world. 

This peace which Jesus possessed he promised, 
as a precious legacy, to his disciples. "Peace 
I leave with you, my peace I give unto you." 
And this peace divine has been a marked feature 
in the life of those choice spirits who have walked 
nearest to the Master in love, obedience, and 
trust. 

Not many men have had more, in outward 
relations, to vex and harass the soul than the 
Apostle Paul. He was continually beset with 
hardship and opposition and persecution. But, in 
every hour of trial and suffering, his calm spirit 
mounted superior to outward circumstances in the 
tranquillity of deep peace. "I have learned," he 
said, " in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be 
content." And this spirit became a dominant 
characteristic of his life. He stood serene and 
calm in all those experiences which usually fill 
the soul with a tumult of fear and dread, — 
whether in prison at Philippi, his body all lacer- 



218 NOBLE LIVING. 

ated from a Roman scourging, or in Jerusalem 
facing a raging mob, or on the wild sea in ex- 
treme peril for fourteen days with shipwreck at 
last, or in Nero's prison-house in Rome awaiting 
execution. Evidently St. Paul had gained the 
secret of his Master's peace. His soul was an- 
chored in God, and his life was a magnificent 
exemplification of those grand words of trium- 
phant faith, " We know that all things work 
together for good to them that love God." 

And what is true of the Apostle Paul is true 
of thousands of Christian disciples in all ages 
since. They have come into possession of the 
Master's peace, — an untroubled peace of soul 
amid life's deepest mysteries. 

Now, what is the meaning of all this? How 
is it that Christ's dying promise of peace has been 
so literally and abundantly fulfilled? 

Christ imparts peace, in the first place, by 
communicating a larger life, and delivering from 
the bondage of evil. That which, above all else, 
proves destructive to genuine peace of soul is 
inward discord, — the discord which springs from 
guilty deeds and a sinful life. 

The Greeks personified the guilty conscience 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 219 

by the three Furies. These are represented as 
pursuing the perpetrators of wicked deeds up and 
down the earth with whips and scorpions. The 
conception is true to nature. The conscience 
pursues the guilty person with avenging stripes 
and torturing stings. It holds up before him 
continually the memory of the black deed. " Be- 
hold," it cries in condemnation, " this is your 
doing." The power of conscience to harrow the 
soul is well portrayed in the self-accusing words 
of Macbeth, " Will all great Neptune's ocean 
wash this blood clean from my hand ? " He real- 
izes that there is no more peace for him. "Mac- 
beth shall sleep no more ! " 

And even when conscience loses its first sting, 
when it ceases to torture with its stern accusation, 
there is yet no real peace for the soul. The last 
state of Macbeth, when he had become hardened 
in crime, evinces even deeper disquietude than 
that which had marked his early guilt. " Out, 
out, brief candle : life's but a walking shadow ; a 
poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon 
the stage, and then is heard no more : it is a tale 
told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying 
nothing." 



220 NOBLE LIVING. 

There is no deliverance from the disquietude 
of guilt but by deliverance from the evil. The 
inward jangling and discord are caused by the 
transgression of God's law of right. There is no 
possible peace for the wicked till they turn from 
their evil, and learn to do well. 

Sin, then, is the great arch-enemy of peace. So 
long as one does evil, or pursues an evil course 
of life, he is contending against his nature and 
against God. The very elements of the universe 
are set in array against him, and the stars in their 
courses tight against him. At the same time there 
is an irrepressible conflict within. The man's 
better nature — his true self — is irreversibly op- 
posed to the evil. And there can be no real peace 
but by conquest of the evil. In seeming opposi- 
tion to his character as Prince of peace, Jesus 
declared he came not to send peace, but a sword. 
That is, his principles of righteousness and truth 
could but incur the opposition of sin and error, 
and stir them up to fierce hate and terrific strife. 
This is equally true of the human soul, and leads 
to an inevitable conflict within. It is in vain to 
cry, " Peace, peace ; when there is no peace." And 
there is only one way of gaining genuine peace, — 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 221 

not by yielding to the evil, not by compromising 
with the evil, but by fighting the evil and con- 
quering it. And then comes peace, "full of joy, 
without one throb of tumultuous passion, the pre- 
lude of the peace of a happier world." This is 
the peace which Jesus gives. It is by the influx 
of his life and love that we may find deliverance 
and peace. It is a radical peace. It accepts of 
no compromise. It goes to the root of every 
wrong, and conquers peace by routing evil in 
every form, and bringing in concord and harmony. 
As Ruskin says, " No peace was ever Avon from 
fate by subterfuge or agreement ; no peace is ever 
in store for any of us, but that which we shall win 
by victory over shame or sin — victory over the 
sin that oppresses, as well as over that which cor- 
rupts." 

More and more, as we come into nearness with 
the Saviour, and triumph over the evil that is 
within by growth in Christian character, will we 
experience of the deep peace which was never 
absent from the Lord, — the "peace of God which 
passeth all understanding, ,, the peace of a soul 
at one with God in the unruffled calm of a pure 
and holy life. 



222 NOBLE LIVING. 

In the second place, Christ leads the soul into 
a state of peace by the faith which he communi- 
cates. Next to sin, the greatest foe to peace is 
doubt. We look out upon a transitory world. 
Flowers bloom and decay. And the sweet flowers 
of human life, to all outward appearance, are 
quite as evanescent. Life is crowded with dark 
mysteries. As we contemplate these mysteries, 
as we meditate upon the awful facts of pain 
and sin and death, as we think of the myste- 
rious lines of blood and suffering which run 
through all the twisted skein of created existences, 
there is no relief for mind or heart except as our 
poor human vision shall be supported by an 
abiding trust in God. How great must be the 
disquietude of that disbelief which recognizes no 
Heavenly Father in all this bewildering maze of 
things ! To think the adjustments of this world, 
the course of events and history, are not planned 
and executed in love, with a purpose and end that 
love can justify; to think that evil is as likely to 
triumph ultimately as good ; to think that immor- 
tality is but a dream, while this present earth-life 
is our all, — this, indeed, were to lacerate the 
soul, and destroy the very roots of peace. It was 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 223 

to deliver from the disquietude of doubt that 
Christ came, revealing the Father. " We are all 
encircled by omnipotent love," his words and life 
declare. And so, " amid the events that bear us 
onward," we can look out upon the dark mysteries 
of life with the calm assurance and the serene 
faith that make for peace. The highest reason 
and the largest faith are blended in one to those 
who walk near the Saviour in sincerity, in obedi- 
ence, in trust. 

How many go through life heavily burdened 
with anxiety and grim forebodings ! What solici- 
tude and care and perplexity to vex the weary 
soul ! To many, indeed, the future looms up 
black and drear. It is streaked with the doubts 
and fears that reach out from their own distrust- 
ing soul. 

From all this there is one sure deliverance. It 
is to be found in the simple faith and absolute 
trust of the Saviour, — trust in God as the Sover- 
eign of the world, trust in his supreme wisdom 
and goodness and love always to do that which 
is best, always to do that which is right. Come 
what may, we are in his hands. With this great 
conviction we are fortified against the evils and 



224 NOBLE LIVING. 

calamities of life. We may not be able to un- 
derstand all ; but in that we do not understand 
we may fall back on trust, — trust in God be- 
cause of his illimitable wisdom and goodness. 
Without this trust we are in darkness in this 
world, with no ray of light except that from 
flitting stars. We are lost amid the sad perplexi- 
ties of life. But with this trust, we may believe 
that all those things which so distress and worry, 
and with which we have nothing to do, are shaped 
for good. With all our boasted freedom, which is, 
indeed, sufficient to make us accountable, it is 
only in small part that we make our lives. They 
arc made for us. There is an infinite Power 
compassing us around which even in the darkest 
features of life is working for our best good. 

" And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our 
incompleteness, — 
Round our restlessness, his rest." 

In all the tribulations and disappointments and 
sorrows of life, how may the anguished soul, 
tempest-tossed, be hushed into calm by that strong 
filial trust which will never let go the living God, 
— which looks out into the uncertain future with 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 225 

calm and tranquil vision, assured that God in his 
infinite wisdom and love and power will reign 
triumphantly for good. 

This great universe, with all its titanic forces, 
is ruled and fashioned by that almighty power. 
The great world of humanity, with its throbbing 
life, its hopes and fears, its tumults and strife, its 
pain and grief, is ruled by that same mighty hand 
of power, — ruled in wisdom and ruled in love. 
We are not heaving about on a turbulent sea of 
discord and confusion. There are ripples of dis- 
cord, to be sure, caused by man's disordered will, 
and eddies running counter to the divine will. 
But the great trend of humanity is ever forward 
toward its destined end. It is held by the al- 
mighty grasp. The eternal purposes are going 
forward in beautiful simplicity and order. The 
pain and the sorrow are but incidental to the 
progress. They must yet be left behind. They 
are but " the background of the pattern which the 
Eternal Mind is weaving on the clashing looms 
of life ; and he who looks with true insight 
already sees gleaming threads falling into shapes 
of beauty and of light." 

There are, as we have seen, two primary causes 



226 NOBLE LIVING. 

for human unrest, — inward discord and distrust 
of God. These two great foes to true peace — 
sin and doubt — are really the only things that 
can greatly affect the serenity of man. These 
have to do with the soul life within and its atti- 
tude toward God. And the remedy must be 
applied where the disease is, — to the inward life. 
It is Christ's life and truth that must be applied, 
to destroy the sin and the distrust, to expand the 
higher life of love and faith. This is the peace 
which Jesus gives. It is a real, substantial peace, 
an abiding peace, a satisfying peace, a peace which 
reaches down into the depths of the soul, and 
which outward circumstances cannot destroy. 

Yet how many there are that greatly mistake 
in this matter. How many seem to think the 
greatest enemies to peace lie without rather than 
within. And so the great concern of their life 
is to remove the outward trial or want. It is a 
mistake. This is the peace which the world pro- 
poses to give, — to remove the outward burden, 
to free the soul from trouble, to surround it with 
the ease and comfort of luxury and wealth. This 
is the peace which the world promises. But this 
is not the peace of the Saviour. He says, "My 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 227 

peace I give unto you : not as the world giveth, 
give I unto you." It is not the outward circum- 
stances that make or unmake our peace, but the 
inward state of the soul and its attitude toward 
God. If there be inward discord or distrust of 
God, one cannot be at peace, though everything 
without be in the highest degree propitious. 
Wherever he may be, and whatever his environ- 
ment, he will yet carry with him his own self, 
with all the elements of unrest. So long as these 
remain, there will be no peace. Just as with the 
fever patient who tosses from side to side in the 
vain effort to fwid relief from the burning heat 
within. 

Neither, on the other hand, if there be harmony 
within, if there be perfect confidence in God, can 
the most unfavorable circumstances greatly dis- 
turb the calm repose of the soul. The surface of 
the life may be moved and tossed ; but below the 
surface there will be a life of peace which no cir- 
cumstance can greatly mar. 

Some of the sweetest and most tranquil souls 
have yet been beset with deep sorrow and severe 
trial. But amid all they have lived in calm con- 
fidence, with the peace of God in their hearts. 



228 NOBLE LIVING. 

No one could come into their presence without 
feeling rested. Though the sun hid its face, and 
dark clouds folded them about, no chill night- 
damp came within to wither the bloom of love 
and trust; no storms could shake them from 
their faith ; no waves could sweep them from the 
etarnal Rock of Ages. 

This is Christian peace, — the peace which 
Christ promises to give his disciples. It is har- 
mony instead of " chaotic passions in jar and dis- 
cord." It is acquiescence in the will of God. 
Once let the soul be moored in the divine life, 
and' though sorrow, sickness, ♦ loss, tribulation, 
roll in upon it, yet may it rise into the broad em- 
pyreal atmosphere of eternal verities, and come 
into a realizing sense of God's mighty love. 

" Like a cradle, rocking, rocking, 
Silent, peaceful, to and fro; 
Like a mother's sweet looks dropping 
On a little face below, — 
Hangs the green earth, swinging, turning, 
Jarless, noiseless, safe, and slow ; 
Falls the light of God's face, bending 
Down, and watching us below. 

And as feeble babes that suffer, 
Toss and cry, and will not rest, 



CHRISTIAN PEACE. 229 

Are the ones the tender mother 
Holds the closest, loves the best ; 
So when we are weak and wretched, 
By our sins weighed down, distressed, 
Then it is that God's great patience 
Holds us closest, loves us best." 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 



■ 
James Milfobd Payson. 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 



" If a man die, shall lie live again ? " " This is 
the great question," wrote a friend of Emma Ab- 
bott shortly after the death of that queen of song. 
No question so generally and persistently pleads 
for reply. We sometimes think there are many 
who rarely lift their eyes beyond the earthly 
horizon, who are rarely disturbed by any ques- 
tion save how to win fortune or position or 
pleasure. But probably there is no one Avho does 
not often face the west, where the sun of life goes 
down, and question about the new day. We 
are travellers on a highway barred by a cloud-gate. 
Our poor human eyes can neither see through nor 
around nor over. Sooner or later it opens and 
closes upon all. The footsteps of those who walk 
in blessed companionship with us are hastened, and 
the impenetrable mists hide them from our longing 
sight. Strain our vision as we may, we get no 
glimpse of the vanished form. We call after 
233 



234 NOBLE LIVING. 

tliem through the darkness, but there comes back 
no reply. Men may show no interest in the in- 
stitutions of religion, neglect all religious service, 
repudiate all faith ; but the great question, Into 
what does that cloud-gate open ? can never be 
wholly without interest to any one. 

"One question more than others all 

From thoughtful minds implores reply ; 
It is as breathed from star and pall, 
What fate awaits us when we die?" 

It is the object of the present essay to offer 
some suggestions in answer. Already there have 
been numberless attempts at reply. A certain 
writer says that " every considerate person in the 
unnumbered successions that have preceded us 
has, in his turn, confronted the same facts, en- 
gaged in the same inquiry." So far from pre- 
suming to more certain knowledge than thousands 
of others, the present writer does not hope to of- 
fer any word that has not often been expressed 
before. But he feels justified in his essay by the 
general longing for light, and the hope that an 
additional witness may help some one to journey 
toward the cloud-gate with more elastic step and 
more cheerful face. 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 235 

" What fate awaits us when we die ? " It is 
a question to which a not uncommon philosophy 
of our time does not make very satisfactory 
answer. Materialism would shatter at one blow 
the sublimest hope of the ages. It would make 
the grandest vision that has inspired the human 
soul but "the baseless fabric of a dream." It 
says that fate awaits us when we die which 
awaits all material life, — every organic form, the 
tree, the flower, the body, — a return to dust. 
Aristoxenus, a Greek philosopher of the fourth 
century before Christ, likened the relation be- 
tween body and soul to that between the harp 
and its harmony. Does not this essentially illus- 
trate materialism to-day? The soul is a result 
of highly organized matter. The brain is a kind 
of electric apparatus that throws off the sparks 
of thought and feeling. Of course this doctrine 
demands an absolute denial of a future life. 
There is no defensible doctrine of immortality 
except that which says that the human spirit can- 
not die. If the soul is but the melody of this 
material instrument, then when the instrument is 
destroyed the melody will cease forever. Or to 
change the figure, if the soul is but the flame 



236 NOBLE LIVING. 

of this lamp of the body, then when the lamp 
is broken, or the oil is all gone, the flame will 
go out, never to shine again. 

If the mind results in any way from bodily 
organism, is it not surprising that it should be 
so superior to it? All adown history mind has 
been conquering matter. What is the progress 
of civilization but the subjugation of the material 
by the human spirit? The body has constantly 
to bow to the soul's regal sway. When the body 
would rest, the soul can force it to move on. 
When it would sleep, the soul can say to the 
eyelids, you must not close. Observe into what 
marvellous subjection the mind of a pianist brings 
her fingers. The hand becomes the instrument of 
immortal executions on canvas and in marble, in 
obedience to a thought. It is in no small degree 
true that the soul is a sculptor to whom the body 
is clay. In quite a measure, thought and feeling 
can disfigure and transfigure bodily form. They 
turn the face into a tablet, upon which to write 
the story of their selfishness, unkindness, and 
vice ; or a mirror from which to reflect their aspi- 
rations, beauty, and sweetness. Can that which 
so masters bodily organism be a product of it? 



THE IMMOBTAL LIFE. 237 

Professor Fisk says that " The only thing 
which cerebral physiology tells its, when studied 
with the aid of molecular physics, is against the 
materialist so far as it goes. It tells us that, dur- 
ing the present life, although thought and feeling 
are always manifested in connection with a pecu- 
liar form of matter, yet by no possibility can 
thought and feeling be in any sense the products 
of matter." Another writer says that the fore- 
most scientists declare that the bodily organism 
is inert without the influence of an agent external 
to itself, and quotes an eminent scientist as say- 
ing of the body that "it cannot change its state 
of motion nor rest without the influence of some 
force from without. True spontaneity of move- 
ment is, therefore, just as impossible to it as to 
what we call dead matter. So we are compelled 
to admit the existence of an exciting cause in the 
form of some force from without to give the in- 
itial impulse in all vital actions." That is, it is 
an agent independent of the body that animates 
and moves it. The brain does not produce 
thought. It is but the instrument of that which 
thinks. The relation of the body and soul is not 
that of the harp and its harmony, but of the harp 



238 NOBLE LIVING. 

and its player. The destruction of the harp does 
not injure the harper. 

This doctrine that the real person, the being 
who thinks and feels and loves, survives the dis- 
solution of the body, is confirmed in many ways. 
It is not without reason that the fact that the 
doctrine of immortality has ever been so nearly 
universal, has been regarded as strongly sugges- 
tive of its truth. A belief in immortality of 
some sort has been largety prevalent in all lands 
and ages. It has been prominent, at least, in 
most of the Avorld's great religions. The religion 
of ancient Egypt had its Amenti, almost as 
real as the present world to the believer ; the old 
Scandinavian its Valhalla, a splendid mansion 
in the skies, roofed with shields and supported 
by spears. The most widespread of all religions, 
Mohammedanism, owes its marvellous conquests 
very largely to its vivid doctrine of a future life. 
Though in crude form, it has been as surely the 
heritage of the savage as the civilized mind. 

Sir John Lubbock declares that certain West 
Africans are entirely without the idea of a future 
life. But probably his statement is to be received 
with some caution. It is doubtful if there be any 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 239 

who have not some intimation of it, if it be no 
more than a belief in spirits haunting the abodes 
of the living. The Greenlander looks for an 
eternal summer-land beneath the ocean, or a 
paradise in the sky, where the Northern Lights 
reveal the sporting of happy souls. Some savages 
think the Milky Way the path to a celestial abode, 
white with journeying spirits. 

Is not the fact of this sublime expectation 
being so generally and deeply rooted, especially 
in the primitive soul, a strong intimation that it 
is not a vain hope ? Think how much antago- 
nism the unthoughtful mind has had to meet in 
its hope of a survival of death. Doubtless be^ 
neath the surface of material nature, there is 
strong testimony to the immortal life. But that 
written on the surface, nature's only message to 
the unthoughtful, is against it. As you bend 
above the white and motionless face of a friend, 
what is there to indicate that he still lives ? Is 
it not wonderful that the primitive mind, in con- 
stant association with death as the final goal of 
all, with no perception of any reason why it does 
not end all, should have conceived and cherished 
the belief that an eminent preacher has called 



240 NOBLE LIVING. 

"the most audacious that has ever entered into 
the imagination of man," that it is to live for- 
ever? Could the expectation have survived hu- 
man experience had it been born of priestcraft 
or originated in dreams? Is it not a much 
more reasonable thought that the primal root of 
the belief in immortality is a kind of instinct, as 
surely indicating the existence of the life it sug- 
gests, as the instinct of the birds that of the south- 
ern home toward which in autumn it inspires them 
to wing their way? 

Does not this hope of the endless life of the 
soul find further and very strong confirmation in 
the soul itself ? Is there not written in the en- 
dowments of human nature very certain proph- 
ecy of their continuance ? In his endowments, is 
not man out of all proportion to this brief life ? 
Has he not been made too much of a being to 
live so short a time ? He has been given a mind 
capable of comprehending the universe in no 
small degree ; of transforming the world and 
itself; of enlisting the mightiest forces of nature 
into its service ; of conceiving and executing that 
which lives through the centuries ; of singing a 
song that thrills human hearts generations after 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 241 

the fingers that penned it are dust. Think of cre- 
ating a being to so completely justify the saying, 
" Thou hast made him a little lower than the 
angels," to live but a little while at the longest, 
and often to be almost as fleeting as a shadow. 
Many a great intellect remains in this world 
barely long enough to show what it can do. In- 
deed, the light of many a great mind goes out in 
the cradle. If man has only this life, then in his 
creation God is like an artist who paints a great 
picture to adorn his studio but for a day, and 
then be cast as rubbish to the void, or spoiled 
before any one can enjoy looking at it ; like a 
sculptor who exhausts his genius upon a statue 
that is soon to be broken in pieces. Infinite pains 
and great genius in the construction of a machine 
show that it was intended for more than the use- 
fulness of a day. Does not the creative genius 
expressed in the human soul suggest that it was 
intended for more than this brief life ? 

And is not this further suggested in the soul's 
capacity for growth? If every person experienced 
life enough here to completely unfold all his 
powers, that would possibly suggest that this is 
all of life. But many are taken from the world 



242 NOBLE LIVING. 

before their intellectual and moral development 
really begins. Many more live barely long enough 
to begin such growth ; and not very much more 
do those who enjoy the best opportunities of a 
long life. Here is a student who has spent three- 
score years in diligent explorations in a certain 
realm of thought. He is renowned for his inti- 
mate knowledge of his chosen field. Yet, as he 
sees how rapidly his sun is setting, his chief re- 
gret is that the night will call him from so unfin- 
ished a task. He says he knows but little 
compared to what he might know, give him time. 
Leonardo da Vinci Avas a marvel of intellectual 
culture. But how much more marvellous would 
have been his acquirements could he have lived 
until to-day? It must be intended that the soul 
shall fully unfold its powers. Under no circum- 
stances can it do so in this life. Must it not 
have another life ? 

All this is further enforced by the fact that so 
many high ambitions and hopes fail of fulfilment 
here. There is the story of a young woman re- 
turning from a foreign land, weary, ill, longing 
for home, on a steamer burned in sight of the 
blessed goal. It illustrates much human experi- 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 243 

ence. Death often compels the abandonment of 
great hopes on the eve of fruition. Are they 
never to be realized ? How many persons, just as 
they are prepared to experience great good in life, 
are called to leave it ! Is the good never to be 
attained? With much toil and pains young men 
and women are educated for usefulness and happi- 
ness. They cross the threshold with their hearts 
pulsating with great ambitions about what they 
are going to be and do. But at the very begin- 
ning the tools, fashioned with such care for carv- 
ing out fortune, drop from their paralyzed hand. 
Are they never to be taken up again ? Under the 
mysterious touch, the brush of the artist falls with 
the great picture as yet but an outline. Is the 
picture never to be finished? The voice of the 
poet is hushed with many a song yet unsung. 
Are those songs forever to remain unsung? Some 
of the most beautiful friendships in this world are 
blighted by death almost as soon at they have 
bloomed, while full of promise. Is that blessed 
association, upon which death so early intruded, 
every thought of which is a joy, henceforth to 
be only a brief memory? 

The administration of the divine government is 



244 NOBLE LIVING. 

equally suggestive of continuous life. While it 
may generally prove true here, that "Whatever a 
man soweth that shall he also reap," often it does 
not. Many of the world's greatest benefactors 
have lived to reap little more than persecution 
and suffering for their self-sacrificing toil; while 
those who constantly injure the world often flour- 
ish like the green hay-tree, perhaps to the even- 
ing time, and amid abundant comfort, seemingly 
at least, fall peacefully asleep. Many crimes are 
committed for which this world affords no chance 
for penalty. The soul often takes its flight with 
the fresh stains of sin yet upon it. And there is 
another respect in which the divine rule demands 
more than the present life. Doubtless there is 
less inequality in human lot than is often thought. 
Much called inequality is apparent rather than 
real. Yet some do have a much better chance for 
holiness and happiness in this world than others. 
If the divine rule is to justify itself, there must be 
experience with it beyond this life. 

Of course many more hints of the continuance 
of life might be added in this same line. But all 
these evidences of immortality are insignificant 
compared to one other. The human heart longs 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 245 

for a " Thus saith the Lord." Do we not have 
it in " Jesus Christ, who hath abolished death, 
and hath brought life and immortality to light 
through the gospel " ? Some one has called at- 
tention to the contrast between the thought of 
immortality among the early Christians and their 
pagan neighbors. The surrounding pagan world 
rested under the black shadow of scepticism. 
With the Christians the future world was almost 
as certain as this one. Paul voices the faith of 
the early church when he says, " For we know, 
that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were 
dissolved, we have a building of God, a house 
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
Travellers tell us that in the Catacombs, where 
are both Christian and pagan tombs, the Chris- 
tian are distinguished by the greater faith of the 
epitaph. If those early Christians had not seen 
the risen Lord, or any one who had seen him, 
they had testimony sufficiently at first hand to 
make his resurrection a certainty. So that open 
sepulchre was to them, and in a measure is to us, 
a kind of window in that cloud-gate in which 
every earthly pathway ends. 

But Jesus gives other evidence of immortality 



246 NOBLE LIVING. 

scarcely less satisfactory than his reappearance 
among his disheartened disciples. There is dis- 
appointment sometimes that the Master did not 
say more about the immortal life. It is true that 
he does not say much specifically about it. He 
does not even use the word •* immortality," or the 
phrases "immortal life," or "future life." But 
is there not very gratifying teaching in this si- 
ence ? He assumes the doctrine of immortality 
to be true. That is a very strong conviction of 
the truth of a doctrine that assumes it to be true. 
It suggests what a certainty immortality was to 
Jesus that he did not think it necessary to argue 
about it, or try to prove it. In that pathetic con- 
versation with his shadowed disciples on the eve of 
the great tragedy, he said, " In my Father's house 
are many mansions: if it were not so 1 would have 
told you." 

The source of this certainty we do not know. 
It may be that he was so far up the mount of 
holiness, and so near to God, that he could hear 
the whispers of the divine. Certainly he could 
not have been mistaken, and thought he knew 
when he did not know. A certain writer says, 
"If one tells me ninety-nine truths, I will trust 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 247 

him in the hundredth, especially if it is involved 
in those before. When the clearest eye that ever 
looked on the world and into the heavens, and 
the keenest judgment that ever weighed human 
life, and the purest heart that ever throbbed with 
human sympathy, tells me, especially if he tells 
it by assumption, that man is immortal, I repose 
on his teaching in perfect trust." 

After such a creditable witness to the exist- 
ence of the immortal life, we may well pass on 
to some consideration of the conditions of that 
life. It may be thought that, if not presumptu- 
ous, this cannot be a very satisfactory task ; that 
the attempt to tell what kind of life awaits be- 
yond the veil is like that of the author to de- 
scribe an unvisited island of the sea. It is true, 
as already intimated, that while the great Master 
gives us good reason for believing in the immor- 
tal life, he nowhere attempts any portrayal of it. 
The Scripture once thought to be descriptive of 
the future life is now regarded by most competent 
authority as illustrative of conditions in this life. 
We sometimes wish that Jesus, if only for a 
moment, had lifted the veil that hides so much 
we long to see ; that he had left at least one 



248 NOBLE LIVING. 

discourse on " Beyond the Gates , " that when 
he said, " In my Father's house are many man- 
sions," he had given a detailed description of the 
heavenly house; that when he came back to 
his disciples he had told them all about the land 
he had just visited, and to which he would soon 
return. There is a spot on the highlands back 
of Lake Erie, where that magnificent stretch of 
landscape that borders the lake opens to the 
traveller journeying toward it all at once. The 
first time I came to that spot, I stood entranced 
before the wondrous scene, — grainfields, apple or- 
chards, peach orchards, vineyards, beautiful homes, 
so suddenly revealed. So perhaps the landscapes 
of heaven wait to entrance us with the sudden- 
ness of the view. 

And yet imagination is not without aid here. 
It is not true that the gospel tells us nothing of 
the character of the immortal life. While the 
great Teacher does not lift the veil from before 
our longing eyes, his attitude toward it is very 
suggestive of what is on the other side. It has 
been said that the fact that Jesus so infrequently 
refers especially to the immortal life, strongly 
evidences the existence of that life. Is it not 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 249 

also suggestive as to the character of that life? 
Certainly were the immortal world entirely dif- 
ferent from this morally, under different laws, 
with different rewards and penalties, Jesus would 
have told us all about it. The fact that he 
says so little about the immortal life, especially 
the fact that he is so largely concerned with 
making men happy here, shows that he did not 
distinguish between this and the next life ; that 
in his mind the immortal, intellectually and mor- 
ally at least, is essentially a continuance of this 
present life. And why must not this be the 
case ? The intellectual and moral nature sur- 
vives. Death is merely the removal of the spirit- 
ual tenant out of the material house into the 
house not made with hands. The real person 
is no more essentially affected by the change 
than is a person by removal from one house into 
another. The mind and heart, the will and con- 
science, remain the same. Therefore death is not 
a gateway into a foreign country, where a divine 
government unlike what we are acquainted with 
here prevails. Man enters the immortal world 
to find the same divine government that has al- 
ways ruled him ; barring material temptations, the 
same moral relations as in this life. 



250 NOBLE LIVING. 

The good and bad are not materially separated 
in this world. They live together in the same 
community. The noble and ignoble touch elbows 
on the street, deal with each other, yea, sleep 
under the same roof, and eat at the same table. 
God does not reward the righteous here with an 
outward paradise, nor punish the wicked with 
exile into some awful place. The divine govern- 
ment here is administered within the soul. The 
kingdom of God is within us. It cannot be dif- 
ferent in the immortal life. Man enters the im- 
mortal world not to find some place of reward or 
punishment prepared for him, but to experience 
whatever of heaven or hell within himself his pre- 
vious life has prepared him for. The gateway of 
death must open into a blessed heaven for him 
who has made the most of his life. But how can 
he who has lived mostly for the material here, 
when entirely separated from it, find other, at first, 
than a most barren life? He whose disposition 
has not permitted happiness in this world will 
scarcely enter at once into unalloyed bliss in the 
next. He who does not find the backward look 
pleasant from the summit of this life, because of 
the faults and follies that mar the scene, from the 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 251 

heights of the immortal will scarcely find it more 
so. Indeed, under that whiter light will it not 
be less satisfactory than before? 

But with the same divine government, the 
same Saviour, the same will and conscience, there 
must' be the same opportunity of salvation in the 
immortal world as here. The sinful soul can no 
more lose its opportunity of repentance and ref- 
ormation by entering the next world than by emi- 
gration to France. Indeed, with its freedom from 
earthly temptation, salvation must be easier in 
that life. Can you conceive of a soul, however 
sinful here, in the larger spiritual freedom and 
light of the immortal life, with no more pleading 
of the earthly appetite or impulse of evil passion, 
remaining long out of the right way ? Is not all 
this very comforting, especially in view of the 
many who have had but poor chance of growth 
in grace here? A certain gentleman has said 
that he never walks through the poorer quarters 
of his city, past the crowded tenement houses, 
and looks at the little ragged forms and starved, 
pinched faces at the windows and doorways, with- 
out a great thankfulness for the thought that 
these unfortunates are to have another and better 
chance for their lives. 



ZbZ NOBLE LIVING. 

The thought that the immortal world is not 
divided into two localities, one of reward and 
another of penalty, suggests the question, What is 
it outwardly like ? The statement now so often 
heard, that heaven and hell are conditions, not 
places, is likely to create the unsatisfactory and 
unreasonable idea that the immortal world is 
" without form and void." Emerson speaks of 
Swedenborg having taken an important step in 
religious history when he taught a future world 
with the accompaniments of all nature, where 
should be continued "the like employments in 
the like circumstances as those we know ; " and 
quotes Milton as saying, " What if earth be but 
the shadow of heaven and things therein, each to 
the other like more than on earth is thought." 
Certainly it is not a very satisfactory conception 
of the future world that does not locate it, nor 
give it any form or feature ; that juictures de- 
parted spirits as shadows drifting on a sea of 
space. We have been made to enjoy this mate- 
rial world. We delight in the forms of nature, 
— the hills, the lakes, the streams, the trees, the 
flowers. Would our nature permit satisfaction 
with a world where there is nothing like these? 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 253 

Some writer has said, " Three things there must 
be in heaven, — children and music and flowers." 
This suggests the question, Why may not liber- 
ated spirits still remain amid these material scenes 
they have loved? Why should we think of the 
immortal world as in some distant realm of space ? 
I like the old illustration of the immortal life 
drawn from the transformation that results in a 
butterfly. The butterfly sheds his husk, not to 
find himself in another world, but still in the old 
world, with increased capacity to use and enjoy 
it; the power to rise into the sunshine, and find 
the flowers. Why may not death be, not transpor- 
tation, but transformation in a sense, — birth out 
of the material, yet into the same old world, with 
new visions and uses of it ? The poet says : — 

" So sometimes comes to soul and sense 
The feeling which is evidence 
That very near about us lies 
The realm of spiritual mysteries. 
The sphere of the supernal powers 
Impinges on this world of ours." 

The thought that the spirit world may be right 
here gives rise to an old and perplexing question. 
Must not its happiness often be spoiled by the 



254 NOBLE LIVING. 

miseries of earth? How can the mother, amid 
whatever sources of delight, mid it heaven, know- 
ing that the little ones whose heartstrings were 
so interwoven with hers that in all their sufferings 
she herself felt a pang, are being neglected and 
abused ? It has been well asked whether she 
would be any happier ignorant of their fate. May 
it not be said that earthly suffering cannot appear 
to immortal as mortal eyes ? The mother in 
heaven knows not only that while the weeping 
of her child may endure for a night, joy cometli 
in the morning, but perhaps sees how his light 
affliction, which is but for a moment, works for 
him a " far more exceeding and eternal weight 
of glory." 

But let us consider briefly some other features 
of the immortal life. It is a common conception 
of heaven, often expressed in sermon and song, 
that it is " a land of rest." " There the wicked 
cease from troubling, and there the weaiy be at 
rest." Says a beautiful sacred song, " Up above 
the stars there is rest." Of course the immortal 
world cannot impose the burdens of toil that 
the earthly pilgrim often longs to lay down. A 
realm without material necessities must be with- 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 255 

out many of the labors of this life, and no work 
in such a world can be the severe taskmaster it 
often is here. There the body does not wear 
out from the friction of hard work ; the back 
does not ache under burdens too heavy for it ; 
the fingers do not stiffen with the severity of 
their tasks. " What shall we eat, and what shall 
we drink, and wherewithal shall we be clothed ? " 
is no longer a harassing anxiety. Of many a 
one who enters the immortal life, it must be 
blessedly true that "he rests from his labors." 

And yet would that life be satisfactory were 
there no kind of labor there ? Human nature was 
made for activity. Inactivity soon ceases to be 
rest. Many persons are miserable in this world 
from having nothing to do. How wearisome would 
the immortal life become with no other pursuit than 
singing God's praise ! Think of the mind which 
has been especially active here, that has found 
its very life in excursions through these won- 
drous realms of thought, being happy in a world 
where there is nothing to think about ! Is it 
heaven to Agassiz if he can no longer pursue his 
favorite sciences? Is it not darkness to Her- 
schel if he is shut out from the light of the 



256 NOBLE LIVING. 

stars? Is Longfellow happy if lliere is no inspi- 
ration to song? 

Is there any reason why there should not be 
as good an opportunity in the immortal life of 
intellectual and moral activity as here ? The 
necessity for men to instruct and make better 
themselves and others must furnish ample exer- 
cise for all. It may be that the opportunities of 
knowledge will be so much greater that all will 
become delighted students there. I recall a dis- 
course in which the preacher referred to the new 
opportunities that the immortal life will give to 
science. He thought that there may not be any 
impediment to transit in that life. And why 
should not the celestial inhabitant have all the 
freedom of the skies ? Why should he not visit 
the outermost world of space, and test for him- 
self Mr. Proctor's wondrous picture of far-away 
worlds, clothed in ever-changing loveliness" under 
colored suns ? Perhaps with the material veil 
removed, the immortal spirit may see this mar- 
vellous mechanism of force about us, the, to us, 
unseen loom that weaves the flowers. 

But there is a more important consideration 
with respect to the immortal life. It concerns 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 257 

its social relations. The probability of recogniz- 
ing friends in the immortal life has been a much- 
discussed theme. Certainly it will be practically 
annihilation if we do not retain conscious iden- 
tity, and as little desirable if we do not know 
each other. The greatest good of this world re- 
sults from its friendships and kinships. Of what 
value would this world be to you if all the cords 
were cut that bind you to others? Chapin said, 
" The most lonely of beings is a man cut off 
from all social relations and domestic ties. The 
rock that stands out in the ocean alone with the 
sky and the surf is only an image of human des- 
olation. . . . There is nothing so solitary as a 
solitary man." Whatever the attractions of the 
immortal life, though its sky be fairer than any 
overarching the earth, though its landscapes be 
more charming than any that have ever inspired 
the painter's brush, it must be desolation if friend 
does not meet with friend. No thought of that 
life so quickens the pulses as that those to whom 
we so reluctantly said good-night are waiting 
to bid us a glad good-morning, when we shall 
awaken from the sleep of death into that eternal 
day. 



258 NOBL^ LIVING. 

But how can disembodied spirits know each 
other? Here we recognize each other very 
largely, though not wholly, by form and feature. 
How can we know each other when these bodies 
have been laid aside to crumble to their parent 
dust ? " How are the dead raised up, and with 
what body do they come ? " Paul says, " There 
is a natural body and there is a spiritual body." 
Stopford Brooke says, " If we believe in God at 
all, that a new form should knit itself to a mind 
and spirit which have become personal through 
the memories and worth of a human life, is no 
more incredible than that they should have been 
originally knit together/' Many years ago, in his 
famous Analogy, Bishop Butler taught what has 
since been more specifically illustrated by the sci- 
entific believer, — that there is not only a spiritual 
body, but with the same form as the natural body. 
It has been said, in opposition to materialism, that 
instead of the body giving birth to the spirit, the 
spirit originates the body. Why may not the 
'material body be a garment which the soul has 
woven for itself ? If the body be a mantle draped 
about the spiritual form, then when it is torn 
away by the hand of death, the form will remain. 



THE IMMORTAL LIFE. 259 

What a comforting thought it is that we shall see 
again the same familiar form, greet again the same 
beloved face that faded into the darkness, in 
whose very expression there was such comfort, 
inspiration, and joy ! 

What a wonderful thought this is of the immor- 
tal life! Many grand conceptions have resulted 
from the human mind. But grander than any 
machinery it has invented, grander than any of 
its thoughts of the marvels of space, is this 
thought of immortal life. What a thought it is 
that you and I will never cease to be ; that the 
scenes we have known and the friends we have 
enjoyed we shall always know and enjoy ; that 
life is an endless highway ; death, as some one has 
called it, "a covered bridge." We pass through 
to overtake those who have gone on in advance of 
us, and in their blessed companionship, dearer and 
sweeter than was possible here, because there are 
no longer any differences of opinion to alienate, any 
earthly struggles and trials to irritate, — in their 
blessed companionship to go on and up forever, 
with constantly new visions and new joys. Who 
can think of it without increased respect for him- 
self, without feeling that a being of such noble lin- 



260 NOBLE LIVING. 

eage and destiny is too good to live an unworthy 
life ? Remembering that " the pure in heart see 
God," that "spiritual things are spiritually dis- 
cerned," we should so live that the immortal life 
will be a constant reality to us. 



A PERFECTED CHARACTER: THE 
GOAL OF LIFE. 



Feed Augustine Dillingham. 



A PERFECTED CHARACTER: THE GOAL 
OF LIFE. 



i. Life. 

Human life is a problem, in its present estate, 
in its mediate and ultimate destiny ; and the prob- 
lem grows as our consciousness of its elements 
increases. In its lowest conception it involves 
struggle, and pronounces its interrogatory, " How 
shall life be sustained ? " As the conception 
broadens, struggles increase, and questions multi- 
ply in number and interest. In its lowest forms 
the attainment of temporary physical comfort is 
about the only thought and effort. When man 
recognizes the relationships and interdependen- 
cies of physical functions, the question becomes, 
how to harmonize, how to lubricate, the various 
bearings, that the machine may run without fric- 
tion. 

The dawning consciousness of intellectual fac- 
ulties and need still further complicates the 
problem ; and in the gratification and growth of 

263 



264 NOBLE LIVING. 

these powers, in the provision for these needs, 
life rises to a higher dignity, realizes a larger 
usefulness, and returns a sweeter blessing. 

So with the recognition of the powers and 
claims of our social, moral, sesthetic, and spiritual 
being. Each forward step carries us farther into 
the problem ; each upward step increases labor, 
adds responsibility, presents new and more diffi- 
cult problems. At the same time our horizon of 
life is broadening, fresh delights open along the 
way, new realms of knowledge come within our 
range ; and the exhilarating, inspiring advance 
upon the heights grants the sweetest satisfactions, 
and promotes the largest health and growth. Hu- 
man life is not only a problem ; it is an individual, 
personal problem. The spirit and accomplish- 
ment of the life depend upon a personal compre- 
hension of its powers and possibilities. A large 
vision of life's power is not always the assurance 
of large accomplishment ; but no large accomplish- 
ment can come without the large vision. It is the 
prime essential. The first thing for the individual 
to do in preparing for life is to take an honest view 
of the situation, face his conditions, and take an 
inventory of his personal estate. By an honest 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 265 

view we mean accepting the universal testimony 
of the senses, universal intuitions, and the bright- 
est light of discovery and revelation. What is 
man ? Physically he is an animal ; i.e., with or- 
gans, adjustments, needs, desires, which, properly 
supplied, conduce to physical health, growth, re- 
production, and comfort. But more than this, 
the physical man is adjusted to minister to the 
higher faculties of mind and soul, and through 
these in return to receive a ministration which 
exalts merely animal comfort to human happiness. 

Man is soul ; he is an emanation from God ; 
he is God's child ; he has God-given faculty and 
capacity; he is God-like in the quality of intel- 
lect, affection, and will, in moral and spiritual in- 
stincts and powers ; he has capacity and desire 
for the exercise of all these faculties. 

How is man conditioned? He is placed in a 
physical realm that is friendly, that readily fur- 
nishes all needed supply for physical life and 
growth, — an ample sphere filled with plenteous 
stores of material to captivate the eye, delight 
the aesthetic sense, stimulate and enlarge the in- 
tellect, and enlist the affections, — opportunities, 
necessarily exercising the will, realms for test- 



266 NOBLE LIVING. 

ing the social and moral powers. And to-day 
not only the leadings of a universal spiritual in- 
tuition, hut the revelations to the spirit, the ex- 
periences of the race, and the discoveries of 
nature's harmonies, assure man of his relation- 
ship to and dependence upon God, — of the im- 
mortality of the soul, and of his relations and 
duties to man. 

Life means not only a recognition, but activity, 
of the faculties. Activity is natural, and is in- 
duced by the necessary conditions of contact with 
earth. The infant lungs are congested, and leap 
into action by contact with air. The eyes are 
called into action by light, and the ears by sound. 
The demands of the new relation create hunger, 
under conditions which provide supply. The in- 
tellect dawns by contact with that upon which it 
feeds. Love feels its impulse ; the will, moral 
and spiritual faculties, assert themselves under 
the divine provision of nature. Natural activity 
involves neither pain nor loss, but suspended 
activity involves both. It is natural and easy to 
breathe, unnatural and harmful to cease. It is 
natural and easy to think, sometimes impossible 
to stop. Natural and easy to will and love, un- 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 267 

natural and harmful to impede the action of 
either. It is natural to have and exercise moral 
sense and spiritual aspiration, unnatural and with- 
ering to suppress them. 

Life means the healthy, natural exercise of pow- 
ers. Growth, whether physical, intellectual, moral, 
or spiritual, is dependent upon health. The study 
of men discovers how inadequate has been the 
comprehension of the marvellous powers of life. 
Men have failed to see life in its fulness of power, 
in its wealth of endowment, in its varied functions, 
in its myriad adaptations. 

The most noticeable thing in a survey of human 
life is its lack of symmetry. The average human 
life is so different from its design and possibility, 
even in its contour. The divinely beautiful tree 
has been deprived of nourishment or sun ; its 
budding powers have been sadly and ruthlessly 
closed ; the tap-root running into the soil of the 
Infinite has been partially, and often practically, 
sealed up. A few wild, unsightly, and barren 
branches too often confront us, in place of the 
divinely beautiful, natural, and symmetrical tree 
filled with, and contributing to, life. 

No one can take a calm, thoughtful view of 



268 NOBLE LIVING. 

life without being filled with wonder and aston- 
ishment at its marvellous mechanical design ; its 
eloquent scope ; its range of faculty, extending 
from the needed ministry of the physical to the 
no less needed ministry of the spiritual ; its ad- 
justments for time and for eternity ; its commu- 
nions with Nature and with Nature's God. We 
are possessed with wonder when we view the 
complex and mammoth machines of human skill. 
We view with growing astonishment the suns 
and systems of God's physical universe. We fall 
down in awe before the vision of God's gift of 
life to man, which in design, in skill, in adjust- 
ment, in possibility, is God's masterpiece. 

II. The Goal. 

Life is not an accident, but a design. The pos- 
session of a "governor" by a machine is a pre- 
sumption that it has a purpose, and that it has a 
sphere of action ; so with the condenser, there is 
something to be condensed, some need of conden- 
sation for the success of the work. The existence 
of this — God's masterpiece — is a presumption of 
purpose, of legitimacy. That God is all-powerful 
creates a profound respect and expectation con- 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 269 

cerning his work. The work itself commands our 
wonder. That God is all-wise forces the convic- 
tion that this work is purposeful and resultful; 
that he is all goodness assures us of its beneficent 
design in relation to himself, itself, and the world ; 
that he is all-loving confirms our hope that the 
results will be felicitously consummated. The 
existence of life is not only the pledge of a divine 
purpose or goal, but the wealth of human faculty 
sheds light upon the wide extent of realms that 
are tributary to this result. The existence of 
each faculty is God's guaranty that it has a part 
to act in the drama of the soul's existence. The 
possession of physical being is the assurance of 
its divine relation to the goal. The possession of 
intellect is God's command to us to use it in the 
service of life. The possession of will and affec- 
tion command their exercise. The leadings of 
instincts mark the way. The thirsts of the spirit 
conduct to the fountain of soul-supply, and bid us 
partake. Again the power of our endowment, the 
observed accomplishments of life, are a prophetic 
gleam of the magnitude of God's purpose. The 
glow of conscious physical power and health ; 
the reaches and triumphs of intellect, in whose 



270 NOBLE LIVING. 

crown rest the wonders of the microscopic atom 
and the glories of the telescopic sphere ; the in- 
spiration of love, under power of which hearts 
and homes have given birth to society and nation, 
in whose embrace the families and kindred of the 
earth find a place, and whose altars burn with 
the spirit of helpfulness for a universe of souls ; the 
power of will in shaping the destinies of men and 
nations ; the artistic skill that has wrought such 
wonders ; the aesthetic sense that has so persist- 
ently and helpfully ministered to the every stage 
and condition of life ; the moral sense that has 
directed and held sway in the vicissitudes of indi- 
vidual, social, and national struggles ; the spiritual 
impulse and uplift that has left no man without a 
present help, no nation without a God, and has 
been as the beacon of hope to the storm-tossed, a 
haven of rest to the weary, — these are the earnest 
of a sublime, divine purpose. 

While a careful survey of life gives no uncer- 
tain sound regarding the existence of a divine 
purpose, it gives sadly eloquent testimony that 
many men have failed to apprehend that fact, 
many more have failed to be inspired by it, and 
most have failed to comprehend its nature, its 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 271 

breadth, or its complete harmony. Many have 
never been awakened from the earth-long sleep of 
physical existence ; or, if aronsed, have gained bnt 
an indistinct vision of higher glories, and have 
lapsed into slumber. Others have stood tempo- 
rarily upon the heights where the delights of the 
intellect, the pulsings of the will, the throb of love, 
the sense of moral responsibility, or the ecstasy 
of spiritual reality have swept over and through 
them, only to close these divine avenues through 
lack of purpose. Still others, having tasted the 
sweets of either the physical, intellectual, affec- 
tional, moral, or spiritual realm, have closed their 
eyes to all others ; and thus recklessly have de- 
stroyed, not only the symmetry of growth, but 
have withheld from life the rich fruitage of a 
developed whole, and have failed to realize the 
richest possibilities of the chosen field. 

The successes of life are only attained by pur- 
pose. Chance winds may blow an occasional 
blossom across our path, but they never cultivate 
flowers. Whatever has been achieved in any of 
the wide domains of life has been born of an aim; 
some end in view has lured and cheered and 
strengthened the toiler on his way. The aimless 



272 NOBLE LIVING. 

man is not only unproductive, lie is a burden to 
himself and society, he is one of the serious prob- 
lems in modern civilization ; he has to be sup- 
ported, if not with the necessities of existence, 
surely by the many provisions of a wise society ; 
he is not a power, but a pensioner in society, in 
business, and in everything that draws strength 
from the higher realm of life. Looking at the 
activities and the accomplishments of life — all 
the results of purpose — we cannot fail to be im- 
pressed with the conviction that there has been 
strong purpose acting as the lever of the world's 
progress, and also that the purposes of men have 
a wonderful variety and intensity. The accom- 
plishments of good that dot the pages of human 
history and mark its glory are eloquent testimo- 
nies and hopeful prophecies, and its increasing- 
army of devotees to the good, the beautiful, and 
the true, and its steady advance in the realms of 
knowledge and life, mark the still nearer and 
nearing approach of the purposes of men to the 
purpose of God ; while the accomplishments of 
evil, seen as such by the good, and largely 
acknowledged as such by the workers of evil, 
remain as problems, although carrying in their 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 273 

bosoms the weapons of their own destruction in 
the confession of their selfish purpose and greed. 
The dominance of legitimate purposes in the ac- 
tivities of life marks our hopeful advance. Still, 
the goals of life as viewed and pursued by men 
in the direction of progress are sadly inadequate, 
oftentimes they cross purposes from a lack of 
harmonious action. No adequate purpose of life 
can be formed by confining our vision to one 
faculty or sphere of life. Our faculties are inter- 
dependent. Our highest motive comes of a rec- 
ognition of all faculties, and a desire to so adjust 
them, one to the other, each to all, that the har- 
mony may be secured. The history of life testi- 
fies to the preponderance of partial and individual 
motives in the struggles of life. Partial views, 
partial activities, have withered the crop, or pro- 
duced fruit inferior in quality and quantity for 
the world's sustenance. Results have been only 
partially satisfying. It is not possible for a 
partial success to satisfy man ; it is not possible 
for the man whose only success is the attainment 
of physical health and comfort to feel satisfied. 
The ascent of intellectual heights while other 
realms are untried or unknown is inadequate to 



274 NOBLE LIVING. 

human need. Wealth, fame, position, all have 
been sought, and all, notwithstanding their worth, 
when weighed in the balance with man's needs, 
are found wanting. There are goodly pearls in 
any of the many fields of life ; no one of which, 
however, is worthy to rest " solitaire " in the 
crown of life ; but all are worthy a place in the 
setting of the pearl of great price, from whose 
surpassing lustre each gains an added value and 
increased beauty. 

Not only is there a great diversity of aims in 
human life, but the various stages of the same life 
may be, and often are, marked by radical changes 
in purpose. The goal the child sets before him- 
self, and which for the time holds him in en- 
thusiastic adherence for its attainment, gives place 
to a new purpose under his broadening vision and 
ripening experience, which in turn is supplanted 
by another. What is true in childhood is true, 
in lesser extent, in youth, still true in the least 
degree in age. What more natural ; what more 
necessary? Youthful vision, limited observation, 
brief experience, in the study of life, give short 
range to the goal, the pleasurable is seen as de- 
sirable, and it is seen as near; but, with the 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. Zi 

awakening of the larger powers, the field broad- 
ens, the ambitions take a loftier flight, experience 
deepens our purpose, and the goal is still at a 
remoter distance, calling for greater and longer 
continued devotion in a pathway beset with dif- 
ficulties. Thus the cultivation of our powers, the 
feeding of our faculties, conduce to a breadth of 
purpose which, while it dethrones the small usur- 
pers of life's little kingdoms, elevates them to the 
peerage in the larger government of the larger 
kingdom of life. 

ni. Character. 

Among the aims that have actuated human life, 
character holds conspicuous place. A character 
is a mark, and as applied to life is the way or 
groove, cut out by one's self, in which to move. 
.Character, whether good or bad, is a commanding 
force. But as evil forces are temporary by nature 
and necessity, having the whole power of internal, 
external, and eternal means to subdue them, we 
shall consider only character as directed to a per- 
manent good. Character is not nature, it is not 
primitive natural impulse, it is not a gift from 
God ; it is a human product ; it cannot be pur- 



276 NOBLE LIVING. 

chased from another, or put on as a garment; it 
cannot be transferred ; it is something attained ; it 
is a creation, a growth ; it is not a transient im- 
pulse, but a stable habit. Nature is God's gift 
to us ; character is our gift to God. Nature 
furnishes the material ; character is the human 
product. Character is the verdict we pronounce 
upon the problem of life ; it represents our solu- 
tion. Character represents, not possession of the 
things of the world, but the possession of one's 
self. It is not expressed in the things acquired, 
but in the principle or method of acquisition. 
The stronghold of character is that it recognizes 
the supremacy of right, and that its kingdom is 
within us. Nature questions how to obtain food 
for its impulses ; character studies how these shall 
be fed to insure health and growth. Character 
interrogates life's impulses, and asks, not what 
does appetite seek, but what will satisfy and bless. 
Character asks of intellect, as it stands on the 
border land of rich territory, not how much can 
be gathered of whatsoever kind, but what can be 
gleaned to contribute to intellectual power and 
life's largest good. Character discriminates, it 
sifts, it adjudicates, it rules, on the conviction of 
permanent good. 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 277 

The ideal of highest good has varied in the ages 
and stages of human progress. Character has 
been manifested and expressed in many ways, but 
it always has the mark of a definite purpose and 
method to serve what is believed to be good. 

Scientists tell us that magnetism is not a for- 
eign something that is imparted to a bar of iron, 
whereby it is made magnetic, but that magnetism 
is a native quality of iron, or a particular arrange- 
ment of its atoms. Science says that magnetization 
simply rearranges the atoms, and that a bar of iron 
is magnetic in character when the atoms are so 
arranged that the inherent magnetic quality leach. 
Human character is formed, not by importing a 
foreign substance, but by a definite arrangement 
of faculties. Characters productive of evil come 
by elevating to the throne of power and the posi- 
tion of leadership an infirm, perverted, or naturally 
tributary impulse. Characters productive of good 
come from such an arrangement of our faculties 
and powers in life that the higher permanent fac- 
ulties shall lead. Men are characterized in fact 
and in reputation generally by their leading mo- 
tive. Some men are intellectually polarized; they 
feel that the intellectual realm is superior, that 



278 NOBLE LIVING 

intellectual needs are superior, and that intellec- 
tual attainments are supreme. Others have a voli- 
tional or affectional polarization, others have an 
aesthetic polarity, still others moral or spiritual. 
And all these characteristics are seen with their 
numerous radiations as they reach out into the 
varied and rich fields of human thought and ac- 
tivity. Character has various qualities, dependent 
upon whether inspired by the ideas of happiness, ' 
utility, or absolute right. Characters have assur- 
ance in varying degrees, dependent upon the recog- 
nized source of power, whether as in the individual 
or in the race or in the Supreme Spirit. Charac- 
ters have scope and power dependent upon the 
conviction of life as temporal or eternal. 

At this stage of advancement in human life, 
it cannot be seriously doubted that the highest 
character is marked by the Christian purpose to 
serve right, reposing in its assurance of birth from 
and government by the infinite God, and reading- 
its destiny in immortality. The influences that 
have operated all through human history to crys- 
tallize purpose into character have been numerous 
and mighty; the persistent and unrelenting im- 
pulse of the soul, which has never allowed man to 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 279 

rest satisfied save in right; the harmonies of phys- 
ical, intellectual, moral, and spiritual life that 
have gradually lifted men into a vision and appre- 
ciation of lightness and wholeness ; the undying 
influence of manifested good and truth and beauty 
as it has shone upon us from the hilltops of life, 
in saint, sage, psalmist, and prophet — not in any 
one, but in all ages of the world — and especially 
in the life of Jesus Christ. Truly the angel of the 
Lord has not only been encamped round about 
man, but has kept vigil at his inner tent, — the 
Holy of Holies. As a contribution to, and as a 
direct and all-powerful influence in, crystallizing 
human character, the life and teaching of Jesus 
Christ stand as unique. In the teachings of Jesus 
the world gets its first grand and inspiring knowl- 
edge of the Universal Father. This vision of di- 
vine origin, divine and imperishable love, divine 
and unending guardianship, and of divine purpose, 
at once laid the necessary and permanent founda- 
tion of enduring purpose in man. Man then saw 
himself divine, divined, and capable of divining. 
In the gospel the world first saw the reality of uni- 
versal brotherhood and what it involved. Then 
the world held the sufficient evidence, legitimizing 



280 NOBLE LIVING. 

the existence and purpose of all power, and com- 
manding a husbandry of all resources. In the life 
of Jesus, truly the Word (" gospel ") made flesh, 
the living, practising, illustrating personality, the 
world first saw the picture of life as God designed 
it, as man should view it and live it. Once seen, 
it has been recognized by the world as the sublime 
ideal and manifestation of life. Its prophecies in 
dull outline had long blessed the world and fed 
its hope. Its copies, drawn in all succeeding time, 
with varying degrees of perfection, testify to its 
matchless beauty, its supreme inspiration, and its 
mastery still. It is the crowning manifestation of 
character, recognized as such the world over. It 
is the crowning inspiration to human thought and 
effort, as advancing Christian civilization testifies. 
Christian character, the character that compre- 
hends the gospel principle and exemplifies gospel 
virtues, is the type before which the world bends 
in grateful homage, and in which reposes its fond- 
est hope. 

IV. A Perfected Character. 

We are apt to think of anything as perfected 
when completed, when it has reached its possi- 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 281 

bility, when it is full, incapable of further addi- 
tion or improvement. Thus viewed, the question 
arises, " Can a character be perfect? " Can there 
be attained such a completeness that nothing 
further is desirable or possible ? Can a character 
attain its growth at any time or period so that 
beyond it there is no change? This is not a 
frivolous speculation, but it has distinct and force- 
ful bearing on the deep questions of time and 
eternity. " If life means growth, if time means 
opportunity for growth, and full growth is at- 
tained by any soul, of what service is the balance 
of eternity to that soul? It would seem to thus 
have outstripped the infinite design, or outdone 
the divine expectation. Absolute perfection is 
an ideal, and not to humanity an accomplished or 
accomplishable thing, if thus popularly viewed. 
Certain it is that no known life on the earth has 
reached such a stage of completeness. We have 
had great specialists in the various fields of 
human accomplishment ; but we have never seen 
an all-round, all-rounded, fully developed life, i.e., 
one exhausting human possibility. We have had 
great warriors, weak in morals. We have had 
wise philosophers, dwarfed in spirit. We have 



OQ-7 



NOBLE LIVING. 



had specialists in the knoAvledge of earth, ignorant 
of the stars ; wise scientists who could control 
many of earth's forces, still ignorant of self-con- 
trol. And at the best, no warrior, philosopher, 
geographer, or scientist has the world seen, who 
held undisputed the title of rider, — no one who 
had in any way exhausted the possibilities of his 
faculties or the field of research. We have had 
great and wise instructors in morals and religion ; 
still, how incomplete has seemed the world's sys- 
tems in both realms. The systems have largely 
been proven incomplete and faulty. Look at the 
teachers themselves, even the founders of moral 
and religious systems, and see, under growing 
light of the world, how imperfect most appear, 
how Aveak in comprehension and in government. 
In its comprehension and character Christianity 
rises mountain high above the summits of ordi- 
nary hills. No ! — earth has not produced abso- 
lute completion in the development of human life. 
If by perfection we mean reaching that point 
beyond which no more is possible, perfection be- 
comes impossible except as an idea, by the law 
of life, the opportunit}^ of life, and the duration 
of life, which point to endless progression. 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 283 

We might fancy that a science, the possession 
of whose secrets made one a pre-eminent teacher 
on earth, might be exhausted under a few aeons 
of eternity ; still, when we think that to know 
any one thing thoroughly, one must know all 
things, the day of perfect knowledge is pushed 
into the dim eternity. We might think that one 
who had learned in time or in the young days of 
eternity to know of the existence of the infinite 
God, and to apprehend his love for his children, 
might become perfected in spiritual motive and 
power and service in the opening cycles of eter- 
nity. But when we reflect what it means to 
know God as he knows us, to grow to a full pos- 
session of infinite compassion, to be perfect in 
everything, the day of absolute perfection recedes. 
If history can be trusted, perfection — absolute, 
entire fulness in everything — has never appeared 
on earth. When Enoch walked with God, when 
Abraham was commanded to be perfect, the eter- 
nity-long ideal was not brought before them, but 
something they were to, and could, accomplish 
while in the flesh, in the process of development, 
in a still imperfect condition. Job i. 1 says 
the man of Uz was " perfect and upright," but a 



284 NOBLE LIVING. 

study of the character will impress the fact that 
absolute fulness of knowledge and being was not 
and could not be postulated of him. The injunc- 
tion of Jesus to his disciples, " Be ye therefore 
perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven 
is perfect," was certainly not to encourage the 
disciples in the hope or expectancy of becoming 
equal with God. His word to the rich young 
man, who had kept all the commandments from 
his youth up, " If thou wilt be perfect, go sell that 
thou hast, and give to the poor," cannot possibly 
be construed as identifying added thoughtfulness 
and ministry to the poor with absolute character- 
perfection, meaning completion or fulness. Even 
the character which we all so much delight to 
ascribe to Jesus himself as the perfect man, the 
perfect teacher, the perfect Saviour, must be taken 
with a restricted meaning, certainly not in its 
absolute fulness. Jesus said, " I can of mine own 
self do nothing ; " that is certainly not a claim of 
absolute perfection, meaning fulness of power. 
He said there were things he did not know; that 
certainly limits absolute fulness of knowledge. 
Not to detract, heaven forbid ! one jot or one 
tittle from the supreme glory of Jesus Christ as 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 285 

man or teacher or Saviour, not to deny or doubt 
any claim he made for himself, not to detract 
from the popular apprehension of his exalted 
sphere, but in absolute fidelity to what we believe 
he taught and was. Perfection thus seen is an 
ideal, ultimate product, a goal towards which we 
look for inspiration, towards which we work, but 
never attain. 

The terms "perfect," "perfection," and "per- 
fected," are most commonly used, not in this sense 
of absolute completeness, but in an accommodated 
sense, referring to quality rather than quantity, or 
again referring to stages of development rather 
than full development, also as referring to a prom- 
ise of good rather than accomplished good. A 
tone may be perfect in quality without reference 
to volume or range, which may be soft or harsh, 
high or low. The rich young man was told how 
to increase the quality of his life in the earth. He 
was devout, obedient to God and man, virtuous ; 
he needed the quality of mercy, not to complete 
his character and accomplishment, or bring it to 
that point beyond which there was no growth, 
but to give it Christian quality, to fit it to be and 
to do better things. 



286 NOBLE LIVING. 

We speak of perfection in the bud, the blossom, 
and even in the unripe fruit, in this qualitative 
Avay, and with reference to its promise of further 
development. We speak of infancy, childhood, 
youth, manhood, and age in terms of perfection, 
referring to qualities that in the highest degree 
characterize the stages of development. How 
much is embraced in the fact of Jesus' perfection 
we cannot now know ; we certainly believe that 
not only the quality of his life was the most per- 
fect, i.e., most like God's, that the world has ever 
seen or shall see, but that in a peculiar way there 
was a larger, more perfect range of conscious 
power, a more perfect harmonious blending of 
faculties, a more perfect subjection of the lesser, a 
more perfect exaltation of the greater powers, than 
the world has seen. 

There was perfect oneness with God in the 
quality of life, u the brightness of God's glory and 
the express image [xapaKrr?p] of his person." Jesus 
had, and represented to the world, in a pre-eminent 
and appointed way the quality of a divinely bal- 
anced life, actually as in God, potentially as in 
man. 

So perfect was this life, so true a representation, 



THE GOAL OF LIFE. 287 

that it is, and is to be, the goal of earthly inspira- 
tion, — the unclimmed pattern to point our search, 
and stimulate our activity. 

The "polarity " of Jesus' life was spiritual, and 
thus discloses the perfect, divine order and proces- 
sion by which souls advance in harmonious and 
endless progress. Thus held, the idea of a per- 
fected character takes its place as a legitimate goal 
of life. • It is harmonious with the revealed 
powers and purposes of God, that find expression, 
not only in his word, but in his work, in the almost 
infinite capacity of human faculty, in the scope of 
human power, in the duration of soul-life, and in 
the quality of its fruits. 

It is harmonious with the innate and undying 
desire of man to attain the best. 

No man is permanently satisfied with imperfec- 
tion in anything which he may undertake. 

Earnest life is marked by inspection, retrospec- 
tion, prospection, and a purpose to improve. 

A vision of that which is true and beautiful 
and good stimulates effort for its attainment ; and 
each attempt, when found to be imperfect, serves 
as a stepping-stone and spur for greater advance. 

A soul is never satisfied when it has less than 



288 NOBLE LIVING. 

the recognition and activity of all its powers, 
when it has anything less than the highest revealed 
ideal of divine and human service, anything less 
than spiritual quality and leadership, anything less 
than advancement in a symmetrical, spiritual de- 
velopment. It is harmonious with the idea of its 
possibility ; since what God has so clearly marked 
out as his purpose in human life, and what univer- 
sal man, as constituted and born of God, desires, 
must be possible. 

It is harmonious with facts as testified to in 
human experience, and in the multitude of lives, 
which, patterned after the Saviour, have helped to 
lift, ennoble, and fructify the sources and forces of 
human power, whereof the knowledge, virtue, and 
joy of Christian civilizations eloquently testify. 



